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Justin Martyr held the first social media religious debate, in his book the Dialogue with Trypho. It followed exactly the same format as livestream debates. The two posed questions and gave answers, they went on tangents, there was an audience who often chimed in or cheered them on, and it ended with both sides thinking they won. This has always been how debates about truth have been; human nature doesn’t change.

Religious debates on the internet are very spiritually dangerous. The people debating are always led into temptations to pride, arrogance, cold-heartedness, and despair. Having a following, an audience, a popular voice, is a terrible temptation to pride and vanity.

Don’t participate in online debates. It’s nothing but useless ego battles. The only real benefit is that it becomes a shortcut for hearing the best arguments of both sides, but this is merely a starting point in researching the arguments themselves and the reasons and data behind them by other means such as books.

Nobody ever actually wins a debate; there’s no such thing as winning a debate. Most people on both sides of the debate never change their minds, don’t have any intention of changing their minds, aren’t open to having their minds changed, and just want their side to win. This doesn’t mean their conclusion is unreasonable or wrong, only that the audience and participants are not truly investigating truth, but promoting their own conclusions as true. Before they joined the debate, they already had a side they were on, and they simply want that side to win. They just watch the debate to strengthen their position or learn new arguments for their side.

A very few people in the audience are genuinely on the fence and open to hearing reasons for both sides, and sometimes these people do change their minds. But most debates use the same arguments over and over, and usually they do it far too verbosely and with too much filler and fluff, and it’s easier and faster to learn these arguments through books or articles. A significant amount of the time, maybe almost all the time, people fall to pride and arrogance when debating or watching debates. They always get burnt out eventually, too, even if sometimes it takes a few years.

Recently, a non-Catholic apologist debated a Catholic on social media, and many people claimed that this non-Catholic helped them to become Catholic. They said that his arguments were so bad that they realized there was no defense of anything other than Catholicism. This only gives evidence to those people’s hearts. Someone who sincerely wanted to know the truth would look at his arguments and see them as flawed because they are inherently flawed. Someone who only wants to remain in their own sins and delusions would look at his arguments and say he won the debate easily. Neither are right. Nobody “won” the debate.

Sinners debate to prove truth wrong, because it shouts loudly in their ears. Every day, the truth is too loud for them, and they feel the need to silence it. But they can’t argue with the truth directly, since it’s abstract. But they also can’t sleep at night with a guilty conscience while living in sin. So to fix this without repenting, they need to justify their logical fallacies, which are all sins truly are. They seek out someone who represents and defends the truth, and try to prove them wrong. They’re obsessed with winning debates, and they will keep going until they convince themselves they’ve officially won.

But often, their opponents simple give up, because they’re tired of going in circles pointlessly. They recognize that the sinner simply can’t see past their own logical fallacies, and they recognize that it’s a waste of time, leave the debate, and do something worthwhile with their time. But the sinner doesn’t want to end the debate without the opponent admitting a loss. So he usually resorts to using emotional manipulation to get the person to stay. They say you’re running, you’re scared, you know I’m right, or other such nonsense. Jesus tells us not to interact with them, and to let them learn through their own trial and error that they’re wrong. This was why Jesus was silent when under trial.

When something is useful, this is the best apologetics possible for it. Proving that it’s true comes after finding that it’s useful. Some have tried praying out of desperation before they truly believed that it will help, and were surprised by the confusing fact that it worked.

Those who mock the true religion and desperately need to win debates proving it wrong, these same people lead such sad and miserable lives that their own life itself becomes the only testimony needed against their own doctrine and how useless it truly is.

The Church is represented by Noah’s ark. St. Paul said that unless you stay in the ship, you cannot be saved. Someone in the ark does not need to prove to someone drowning that they themselves are not drowning. They feel no panic or urge to prove to others that they’re right, they simply know it by the fact that they’re not drowning. That’s not to say everyone in the Church is also in the ark. Those in mortal sin are drowning from water in the lungs they haven’t coughed up. But some outside the ark are being pulled in by lifeboats, and are on their way to converting soon enough, such as catechumens.

Mary is also called the Ark of the Covenant. She contained Jesus, the true manna that came down from Heaven. Unless you remain in the heart of Mary, you cannot be saved. Don’t make your heavenly mother sad or break her heart. And what does she want you to do? Whatever Jesus tells you, according to her last words in Scripture.

When someone disagrees with you about religion, just wait and see how both your lives play out by the end of each. That will be the ultimate test of which religion was more useful for surviving injustices and calamities, and therefore more true and correct.