Jehovah's Witnesses Are a Cult

Hello, first off I would like to thank my opponent for starting this debate, and welcome our newest member to DDO.

Second thing I would like to do is ask that my opponent to take a look at the popularity rating this debate has gotten already. Numerous debate members of this site viewed this debate and did not like its set up at all so they voted it down in popularity. This is because of the cardinal importance a definitive definition of just what constitutes as a cult was not given or agreed on in your opening round.

But fear not, for I, Marauder, one of this sites top debaters, am volunteering to mentor you for this debate by making a good debate out of the resolution you provided even without a definition being given for what a cult is.

Normally in a debate over this topic the opening round would have had a definition set out like this for example

Definitions:

Jehovah Witnesses- a religion whose founder was Charles Taze Russell.

Cult- a religion that follows a man and not the bible.

That was just an example we are not really using that this debate. Anyway afterwards we would then have a common neutral ground to refer when determining if JW’s are a Cult but arguing if there church meets the criteria of the given definition we are arguing about.

That’s not an option this debate and most past up the chance to take the Con side because of it. But like I said am one of this sites top debates. Because I am smarter and more clever and imaginative than most the other members of this site I do not need you to provide the basic necessity of definitions to argue from to win this debate.

All I need is to draw back to the Socratic Method http://en.wikipedia.org... and trust your profile some at least for the sake of this debate.

Socrates’ would systematically argue with people by finding something they agree on and basically working his way from that point back to the resolution. Now while we cant fairly debate with an agreement on what a cult is we can have a mostly fair debate agreeing on what a cult IS NOT.

You and I are both Christians (at least according to your profile and I have little suspicion that it could false right now). And perhaps I’m going out on a limb but I feel like its safe to say you don’t look at your own religion with the label of “I’m in a cult”. So….

A) Its assumed for this debate that mutual faith of the debaters is what is NOT A CULT

B) Based on A Christianity is not a cult.

C) My opponent has given reasons for why JW’s is a cult

D) If I can show the reasons given in C apply to Christianity based on B the reasons would then fail to show JW’s is a cult

E) If I pull of D then the resolution is not proven Pro and all should vote Con.

Hear are the 3 cult characteristics you gave

Requires drastic changes to member’s lives: Are you suggesting that we Christians who are not a cult are not supposed to make drastic changes in our live? I am offended at the suggestion. We teach that when you live a live with love like Christ it truly starts to change every aspect of your life. It is the goal of every Christian to have our old selves that were of this world die with Jesus on the cross and have our spirits be reborn to live lives that are set apart and stand out from the lives of those that live for the secular world.

Has leader(s) that claim special knowledge from God: I don’t know if you have met Jesus but he is our churches leader who not only claims to have knowledge from God but claims to be Gods only begotten son. Not to mention every book of the bible was claimed to be written by someone under the divine inspiration of God. The word of God has got to come from some kind of prophet man

Exercise Control over followers: Unless you can provide a link that shows that article so it can be seen in context it cannot be used to prove this point. A title like that might have been used to mean a lot less than it sounds. In any case telling others to avoid thinking independently is not the same as manhandling them make them drink poisoned koolaid. An article in a magazine is hardly ‘exerting control’. Plus I know by default that whatever the article in question meant by ‘thinking independently’ they did not mean all kinds of independent thinking as you have to do that to break from the norm of society to even be a JW.

Also can you really say that we do not exert any kind of ‘control’ over our own church members? All denominations have “Book of Discipline” of some kind or another. Plus if it were our intention to just let our members go off and do whatever they feel like we would no need of “Spiritual Sheppard’s”. I don’t suppose you would find it too out there to ask if you thought the ARMY was a cult because of the control it has over its members?

And with that I have negated the 3 reasons you gave to show the JW’s are a Cult thus leaving the Resolution unproven.

I await my opponents response.

On your last comment, I just want to make a quick disclaimer. I was shooting for comical arrogance so your not really supposed to take that comment seriously, just you know… laugh and have fun.

Anyway back to the debate, there are 2 Major Reasons you lose this debate.

Reason #1: You can’t give new arguments in the final round. Even by your own admission the point which your whole case hinges is about all faiths being cults, it was a new argument you decided to just add in the final round. Final rebuttal and conclusions are okay in the final round by flat our new arguments are not. At the very least this is a breach of conduct and should lose you the conduct point and at the most your new arguments in the final round should not hold anymore weight on the debate than had you put them in the comment section, thus causing you to lose the debate.

Reason #2: Even if we were to consider your new argument you added in the final round you still lose this debate. By deciding to go as far as say “sure all religions are technically cults” for the reasons you gave that make the JW’s a cult than the term “cult” has now become watered down to the point of meaninglessness. Anything can be called a cult not, Catholics, Baptist, scientologist, Hindus, Congress, the Military, the GOP, lobbyist, the USA, Australia, Unions. Pretty much anything.

If we are to follow your case to its natural logical conclusions we could only really conclude that “cult” is a meaningless term, like ahifdyoi and QQQQiiryr. Cult being a meaningless term means that there are no cults, they do not exist. Cult is just a vain word we slap on things we don’t like we slap the word “stupid” or “bugerbrain” on the kid we don’t like in elementary school. Its not that there is anything that actually makes him a bugerbrain, cause the a insult I just made up, theres no rational case for actually calling kid that.

That’s really all the character space I needed to use on that. So…..

In Conclusion:

1) Pro needs to give linked sources in future debates that preferably avoid being wikipiedia.

2) Pro needs to give definitions for all the terms of the resolution in his future debates

3) Pro needs to keep his new arguments in the rounds before the final round in future debates

4) Pro needs to have debates with more than 2 rounds in the future.

5) One last piece of advice that might help your future debates; try and package your arguments in the future as if you plan on a extreme skeptic to your side of the case to read it with only a logical line of thought to bias them to see it your way. Perhaps then you will not just put sporadic factoids that come off like a rant but instead are all used in a flow together in the same fashion of the Socratic Method.

Vote CON!