Debates between atheists and theists over the existence of God are common, but really good and productive debates are rare. I’m not talking about the formal, professional debates between trained debaters; I’m talking about more personal and private debates — serious discussions between serious people. What can be done to improve their quality and ensure that time isn’t wasted?
The more you assume about the other person, the more likely it is that some of your assumptions will be wrong; that in turn leads to mistakes, misunderstandings, and missed opportunities. As much as possible, ask questions rather than simply making assumptions. Don’t assume that you know their religious doctrines. Don’t assume that you know their philosophical beliefs. You can make guesses, but try not to act on or base much on them.
In addition to not making assumptions about what the other person believes, you also shouldn’t assume that they share with you how to define key terms and concepts. If they don’t, then arguments you make using these concepts won’t be as effective and may be counterproductive. The biggest issue to get out of the way is the definition of the “God” itself. Unless everyone is operating from the same definition of this, there’s no point in even starting.
Not only will people differ in how they define key concepts, they will also differ in the sorts of premises they rely upon. These different premises will cause you to examine the same arguments and evidence in completely different ways. In fact, it may be that the real discussion you should be having is not over these arguments and evidence, but over the premises and assumptions themselves.
There are few things more annoying that someone who offers for evaluation and critique an argument which they themselves don’t rely upon and which, if false, wouldn’t affect their position. This suggests that they only care about getting you to agree but not why — which means they don’t care about believing for good reasons. There’s no sense in wasting time with such a person. Insist on arguments which they find convincing and which if undermined would cause them to reconsider their belief.
There is no sense in even beginning a discussion if you have no plans or means for supporting your beliefs and defending the claims you intend to make. A mere statement of belief serves as nothing more than a psychological self-report and almost no one will care about that. To get people to care, you must articulate sound reasons for your beliefs and this entails supporting your claims. Unless you can do this, don’t bother starting.
Not every attempted defense of one’s beliefs is equal. Some defenses are better than others and what separates the good from the bad is one’s ability to use sound logic and reason. The better you are at constructing a logical argument, the better you will be able to defend your claims as well as critique the claims made by others. Insist on this not just from yourself, but also from others. If their logic is poor, you won’t get anywhere.
There is a tremendous difference between discussion and preaching. Discussion is a give-and-take process where everyone contributes something. Preaching, however, is just one person getting up on a soapbox and haranguing others until they get tired enough to walk away. People who enter discussions with the intention of preaching are disingenuous in their actions and should be cut out of the conversation.
If you enter a conversation unwilling to reconsider your position and uninterested in the possibility of learning something new, they you are too closed-minded to help the conversation be productive. More likely than not, you’ll just end up preaching. You probably won’t learn anything and others won’t learn from you. A little humility here when it comes to what you think you know can go a long way.
Some may question why anyone would bother to debate the existence of God in the first place. Most theists seem to see this as an opportunity to evangelize, with only few claiming that faith must come as a gift from God and cannot be produced through reasoned argument. A larger number of atheists question the value of such arguments, insisting that too many theists arrived at their beliefs through non-rational means — and if that’s the case, what reason is there to think that their minds will be changed through the use of rational argument?
There’s definitely something to this. If a person hasn’t reasoned their way into a position, it’s unlikely that they can be reasoned out of it — and a reasoned discussion like this has little value unless all enter into it with a willingness to consider the possibility that they may learn something new and have to change their minds. In a significant number of cases, then, the arguments might just be a waste of time — that’s why several of the above suggestions provide things to watch for in order to determine who is worth continuing with.
In a few cases, though, it might still be worth engaging in at least something of a discussion with someone who isn’t as reasonable and rational as you’d prefer. Sometimes you might be able to show a person how to reason well. It’s not uncommon for people to hold unreasonable positions simply because they don’t understand how to reason properly. Sometimes, you might be able to plant a seed of doubt and thereby get them to engage in greater skepticism of their position somewhere down the road — you probably won’t see it, but it may happen.
Finally, there may be some value for you in that you will learn more about aruging. Even if you have no hope that the other person will help you get anywhere with regards to the substance of the discussion, they might serve well as a bad example and allow you to practice identifying fallacies and finding the flaws in an argument.
