Discussion Thread: tomspug/mball Reverse Debate (atheist, Christianity, Christian, Christ)

[tomspug]

Hey everybody. I was curious to know what you all thought about the concept of Reverse Debate and whether or not it should be emulated in the future.

Also, you can post commentary and discussion about the actual debate here as well.

[Khale]

Care to describe what reverse debate is?

[mball1297]

Originally Posted by Khale

Care to describe what reverse debate is?

Tom is Christian and I am an atheist. We are tackling the problem of evil, and he is arguing the side of atheism and I'm arguing Christianity's side. The reverse is that we are taking the opposite stand as we normally would.

[tomspug]

In Reverse Debate, each person argues from the other person's perspective, doing their best to properly defend their side of the argument, even though the person themselves does not believe it.

To me, it is an exercise in communication in understanding. If a person does a good job in presenting an argument that they themselves do not accept, it adds to the credibility of that person and implies that they themselves can answer their own arguments. The question is whether or not the OTHER person can answer them...

[Charred.Atheist]

Originally Posted by Khale

Care to describe what reverse debate is?

It's where they argue with their backs turned to each other!

[whereismynotecard]

Originally Posted by mball1297

Tom is Christian and I am an atheist. We are tackling the problem of evil, and he is arguing the side of atheism and I'm arguing Christianity's side. The reverse is that we are taking the opposite stand as we normally would.

Originally Posted by tomspug

In Reverse Debate, each person argues from the other person's perspective, doing their best to properly defend their side of the argument, even though the person themselves does not believe it.

To me, it is an exercise in communication in understanding. If a person does a good job in presenting an argument that they themselves do not accept, it adds to the credibility of that person and implies that they themselves can answer their own arguments. The question is whether or not the OTHER person can answer them...

He he!! That is cool. Yeah, I think you guys should do that... It would be fun.

[mball1297]

Originally Posted by whereismynotecard

He he!! That is cool. Yeah, I think you guys should do that... It would be fun.

We're already doing it. It's in the one-on-one debate section.

[whereismynotecard]

Originally Posted by mball1297

We're already doing it. It's in the one-on-one debate section.

Awesome... Well, keep doing it then... if you want. What was the question then?? If other people should do it too??

[rheff78]

I used to do this in my ethics class in college. I would always write about the opposite of what I believed.