Logical Fallacies

[Angrboda]

You've got to understand the basic facts. Debates aren't about making an argument. The arguments are often largely irrelevant. Debates are about winning over the audience, or at least your portion of it. And the tried and true way to win an audience over is to play on their emotions. Debates aren't about logic. Debates are about propaganda, and who can best play that violin even if Rome should burn. This is why religious debaters prepare the field months in advance, stacking the crowd with friendlies, busing them in often, manipulating the promotion before the debate in often unscrupulous ways, knowing what they need to succeed and ensuring the secularist agrees to all the wrong things in setting the ground rules. Skilled religious debaters make an easy meal of inexperienced secularists who are unfamiliar with 'the game'. And even knowing in advance, the general lay of the land usually ends up pitched in the religious debater's favor.

This is why not uncommonly, rationalists with experience in debate, who 'know the score,' choose no longer to debate; they've concluded, right or wrongly, that it will likely do more harm than good.