On last night’s Ardent Atheist live stream and podcast, Emery passed to me to follow up a topic Heather was discussing, on just how to handle the believers who won’t stop arguing, won’t stop yelling (in written form), and won’t listen to reason. The question, simply enough, is about when to stop. Should you stop? When do we decide they’re a lost cause?

For me, it’s not a question of the believer being a lost cause or not. In fact, that’s not even relevant to me. When I’m debating someone who’s coming across possibly as stupid, foolish, willfully ignorant, or exceptionally dense, I’m not debating to change their minds. I don’t deny the possibility that I could, as I have friends who were once quite committed believers, but at a certain point I stop expecting to make a difference to them. So why do I keep it up?

For one simple reason: the Internet is public, and close to eternal. The arguments you post online are visible to essentially anyone, and can have a major impact. A person who’s sitting on the fence, or even someone who thinks they’re set in their belief can stumble across your debate and quite possibly see something fresh and new to them. They can find the attitude you project, and your willingness to actually speak openly and honestly about your opinions, and gain perspective from it that they wouldn’t otherwise have. Creationists have been de-converted by people willing to actually bother to keep up the debates against all odds.

There are plenty of good reasons to give up on an endless, failing argument. Exhaustion, frustration, sanity, and lack of time are all solid ones, and it seems fair to state them and move on. But the mere fact that the person you’re arguing with is beyond the ability to change their mind is, in my opinion, not good enough. They’re not the ones most likely to learn from your efforts, and if you’re willing to keep it up, it’s worth it.