It has been thousands of years, and the basic debates rage on. Now, on Discord (and other corners of the internet) the “newbie” apologists, especially the presuppositionalists, have been schooled in the history of Christian apologetics. It is now possible to step beyond the actualization of the debates and examine the conclusions; as this as what the Christians themselves have done.

There are no Christian debate communities anymore. They all closed. They closed because they all failed – much like your typical Ham & Hodge “Classical Apologetic”. The scholars? They left the building already. The only ones left got their schooling before the internet era. Presup was the last stand, and it's dead now. Now, there is no debate. if you disagree, you're muted/kicked/banned.

ex. Did Moses write about Jesus? No, he didn't. This is a problem.

• Did Jesus inaugurate a Jubilee year? Yes, and this is a problem.
• Is Jesus distinct from God? Yes, and this is a problem.
• Was Abraham justified by faith? No, and this is a problem.
• Is the Christian interpretation of (verse x) self-consistent? (ex. here and here, for ex.) No, and this is a problem.

The list above goes on and on. This is not the problem, the problem is that each individual issue is not unresolved – it is in fact resolved. And Christians do not only “not” have an answer, but they have shown their true colors.

Darth Dawkins aside, presuppositionalists aside, Christians invariably demonize those who disagree with them. The extent to which this occurrs depends on the experience the Christian has with apologetics. Christians who do not have good experience invariably respond earlier with anger and hatred. Christians with more experience typically demonstrate some modicum of restraint so long as you are within their script. The anger and hatred is a defense mechanism because they believe it is impossible they could be wrong. Therefore when you show them that they are wrong, you must be the devil tempting them. It is inconceivable to the Christian that they could be wrong.

In the context of an online debate, it is possible to be muted and personally attacked within 30 seconds of entering a debate with a christian so long as you do not allow them to bully you in the debate.

The Christian typically attempts to establish power and control psychologically early on in the debate by slightly insulting the intellectual capacity of their debate partner. Usually this takes the form of bullying in some way, but each Christian has their own way of bullying and controlling a conversation. Often, when a Christian is losing a debate, they will fill the air with words and (at times, dozens of..) bible verses, many of which begin to speak to something off-topic. Invariably the tactic is to revert to a testimony or a re-iteration of christian theology. Rarely is the actual question or topic addressed; the Christian honestly feels that if he can just reiterate christian theology and “make the case for Jesus” and then offer it to the opponent, he has “done his job”.

In one of my earliest online debates, with CARM founder Matt Slick, within a few minutes he was screaming “Fuck you” at me and “I do not give a fuck about you.” This is because I did not accept his bullying and overtalking and I attempted to merely stay on topic. I approached him with “honest questions”. He didn't really have an answer to my questions and when I pressed the human angle he made it very clear how he felt.

Darth Dawkins was the worst one. I once let him monologue for almost 20 minutes. I played his game, answering “yes” or “no” to his questions. However, when I surprised him with a “no” about 15-20 minutes in, he immediately called me a troll and muted me.

I cannot express to you the number of times that Christians – and, great numbers of Christians – different Christians – have muted me simply for being able to ask questions or debate points they could not answer. Christians are power tripping narcissists. They DO NOT care about you and they DO NOT care about your questions.

They are only looking for a chance to give you the “good news”. If you reject it (because it has nothing to do with what you asked) they will mute you/demonize you and move on to the next person.

I have been in Churches meeting with pastors and groups of people where they simply machine gun you with passage after passage and if you are knowledgeable to speak to their verses they will start making statements like “You think you're really smart, huh?” or “Satan knows the bible very well…” or “It's not about knowledge, it's about faith”. Well maybe all of those things are true, but it doesn't mean anything. When someone is wrong, they are simply wrong.

Granted not all Christians are like this – many do not bother to engage in apologetics. Or as the Christians say, “outreach”. For a Christian, after over 2,000 years, there is no logic in apologetics. To a Christian, apologetics is a macguffin.

In the End, Christians sit around endlessly discussing the same basic concepts over and over, as if they are trying to convince themselves it is true. For almost a year every time I went into certain large Christian channels on Discord, they were talking about either Catholocism vs. Protestantism, or the nature of the Trinity. Maybe if they discuss these issues enough it will drown out all the “difficult” criticisms of their religion.

This is the sad state of post-apologetic Christianity.