I'll give you another basic example:

For instance, during a conversation a combative atheist may boldly assert "there is no God".

If you were already in the argument and that was aimed at you, or if you are someone looking to jump in, you can reply "do you have any evidence for your claim?"

Things could go many different ways after this.. they could respond... "do YOU have any evidence for YOUR claim?"

• to which if you just jumped in you can say "i wasn't making any claims, but asking for you to provide evidence for this".

• If you were in it already, you'll have to analyze what was said by both parties before continuing, but a possible avenue is "The Holy Bible is considered testimonial evidence, and people have tested and testified of its validity in every generation including ours. If you are excluding testimonial evidence which is part of the body of evidence available to humankind, that's nothing more than moving the goalposts on what defines evidence at best, or at worse appealing to ignorance and dismissing billions of people, or generalizing them to be worthless without any shred of evidence to support that."

They could also respond "I don't need to prove my claim" - to which you can say, 'those making the claim have the burden, for example i have a bucket, saying 'there is no water in this bucket - how would i prove it to you? simply by showing you there is no water in the bucket'. This puts them in a tough position because in order to prove their claim of "there is no God" they would need to be able to prove that they can be everywhere in all of creation and beyond at every moment (something they can't do).

these are just a simple examples. But i will tell you i have seen this, and you need to be aware of it:

Combative atheist sets up fallacy... people engage with the fallacy.. the atheist then controls the argument and piles more fallacies on (bad path).

Combative atheist sets up fallacy.. you point out the fallacy and rebut it soundly. They don't like it, so bring out a fallacy to prop up their failed fallacy. You rebut that second fallacy. They bring out a Nth fallacy to prop up their failed fallacy that failed to prop up their previous fallacy.. continue to rebut the fallacy. I stopped after 3, saying something like "Fallacy 3, you're out!" and moved on, much to their displeasure, but i gave them kind words to learn the scriptures better so they can learn not to require the crutch of fallacies. This requires you to know, and be able to identify fallacies (it's not easy).. it's kind of like regex.. sometimes you have to look it up.

tl;dr: Stay logical, stay truthful, stay reasonable, stay rational, don't get emotional, stay within WWJD (imagine him dealing with the pharisees and sadusees, or the money exchangers, but also imagine how he was when peter cut off a soldier's ear, or helping the poor - bold as a lion, gentle as a dove)

I'll give you another basic example:

For instance, during a conversation a combative atheist may boldly assert "there is no God".

If you were already in the argument and that was aimed at you, or if you are someone looking to jump in, you can reply "do you have any evidence for your claim?"

Things could go many different ways after this.. they could respond... "do YOU have any evidence for YOUR claim?"

• to which if you just jumped in you can say "i wasn't making any claims, but asking for you to provide evidence for this".

• If you were in it already, you'll have to analyze what was said by both parties before continuing, but a possible avenue is "The Holy Bible is considered testimonial evidence, and people have tested and testified of its validity in every generation including ours. If you are excluding testimonial evidence which is part of the body of evidence available to humankind, that's nothing more than moving the goalposts on what defines evidence at best, or at worse appealing to ignorance and dismissing billions of people, or generalizing them to be worthless without any shred of evidence to support that."

They could also respond "I don't need to prove my claim" - to which you can say, 'those making the claim have the burden, for example i have a bucket, saying 'there is no water in this bucket - how would i prove it to you? simply by showing you there is no water in the bucket'. This puts them in a tough position because in order to prove their claim of "there is no God" they would need to be able to prove that they can be everywhere in all of creation and beyond at every moment (something they can't do).

these are just a simple examples. But i will tell you i have seen this, and you need to be aware of it:

Combative atheist sets up fallacy... people engage with the fallacy.. the atheist then controls the argument and piles more fallacies on (bad path).

Combative atheist sets up fallacy.. you point out the fallacy and rebut it soundly. They don't like it, so bring out a fallacy to prop up their failed fallacy. You rebut that second fallacy. They bring out a Nth fallacy to prop up their failed fallacy that failed to prop up their previous fallacy.. continue to rebut the fallacy. I stopped after 3, saying something like "Fallacy 3, you're out!" and moved on, much to their displeasure, but i gave them kind words to learn the scriptures better so they can learn not to require the crutch of fallacies. This requires you to know, and be able to identify fallacies (it's not easy).. it's kind of like regex.. sometimes you have to look it up.

tl;dr: Stay logical, stay truthful, stay reasonable, stay rational, don't get emotional, stay within WWJD (imagine him dealing with the pharisees and sadusees, or the money exchangers, but also imagine how he was when peter cut off a soldier's ear)

I'll give you another basic example:

For instance, during a conversation a combative atheist may boldly assert "there is no God".

If you were already in the argument and that was aimed at you, or if you are someone looking to jump in, you can reply "do you have any evidence for your claim?"

Things could go many different ways after this.. they could respond... "do YOU have any evidence for YOUR claim?"

• to which if you just jumped in you can say "i wasn't making any claims, but asking for you to provide evidence for this".

• If you were in it already, you'll have to analyze what was said by both parties before continuing, but a possible avenue is "The Holy Bible is considered testimonial evidence, and people have tested and testified of its validity in every generation including ours. If you are excluding testimonial evidence which is part of the body of evidence available to humankind, that's nothing more than moving the goalposts on what defines evidence at best, or at worse appealing to ignorance and dismissing billions of people, or generalizing them to be worthless without any shred of evidence to support that."

They could also respond "I don't need to prove my claim" - to which you can say, 'those making the claim have the burden, for example i have a bucket, saying 'there is no water in this bucket - how would i prove it to you? simply by showing you there is no water in the bucket'. This puts them in a tough position because in order to prove their claim of "there is no God" they would need to be able to prove that they can be everywhere in all of creation and beyond at every moment (something they can't do).

these are just a simple examples. But i will tell you i have seen this, and you need to be aware of it:

Combative atheist sets up fallacy... people engage with the fallacy.. the atheist then controls the argument and piles more fallacies on (bad path).

Combative atheist sets up fallacy.. you point out the fallacy and rebut it soundly. They don't like it, so bring out a fallacy to prop up their failed fallacy. You rebut that second fallacy. They bring out a Nth fallacy to prop up their failed fallacy that failed to prop up their previous fallacy.. continue to rebut the fallacy. I stopped after 3, saying something like "Fallacy 3, you're out!" and moved on, much to their displeasure, but i gave them kind words to learn the scriptures better so they can learn not to require the crutch of fallacies. This requires you to know, and be able to identify fallacies (it's not easy).. it's kind of like regex.. sometimes you have to look it up.

tl;dr: Stay logical, stay truthful, stay reasonable, stay rational, stay within WWJD.

I'll give you another basic example:

For instance, during a conversation a combative atheist may boldly assert "there is no God".

If you were already in the argument and that was aimed at you, or if you are someone looking to jump in, you can reply "do you have any evidence for your claim?"

Things could go many different ways after this.. they could respond... "do YOU have any evidence for YOUR claim?"

• to which if you just jumped in you can say "i wasn't making any claims, but asking for you to provide evidence for this".

• If you were in it already, you'll have to analyze what was said by both parties before continuing, but a possible avenue is "The Holy Bible is considered testimonial evidence, and people have tested and testified of its validity in every generation including ours. If you are excluding testimonial evidence which is part of the body of evidence available to humankind, that's nothing more than moving the goalposts on what defines evidence at best, or at worse appealing to ignorance and dismissing billions of people, or generalizing them to be worthless without any shred of evidence to support that."

They could also respond "I don't need to prove my claim" - to which you can say, 'those making the claim have the burden, for example i have a bucket, saying 'there is no water in this bucket - how would i prove it to you? simply by showing you there is no water in the bucket'. This puts them in a tough position because in order to prove their claim of "there is no God" they would need to be able to prove that they can be everywhere in all of creation and beyond at every moment (something they can't do).

these are just a simple examples. But i will tell you i have seen this, and you need to be aware of it:

Combative atheist sets up fallacy... people engage with the fallacy.. the atheist then controls the argument and piles more fallacies on (bad path).

Combative atheist sets up fallacy.. you point out the fallacy and rebut it soundly. They don't like it, so bring out a fallacy to prop up their failed fallacy. You rebut that second fallacy. They bring out a Nth fallacy to prop up their failed fallacy that failed to prop up their previous fallacy.. continue to rebut the fallacy. I stopped after 3, saying something like "Fallacy 3, you're out!" and moved on, much to their displeasure, but i gave them kind words to learn the scriptures better so they can learn not to require the crutch of fallacies. This requires you to know, and be able to identify fallacies (it's not easy).. it's kind of like regex.. sometimes you have to look it up.