Do you know most every large nation has political propaganda units? China alone makes many university students do online work promoting their Emperor Xi. We all know Russia’s been at the propaganda mills for a long time.
On the Internet, you never know who is arguing against you. Many Thousands of people are literally paid to argue online. They get a notification at their computer that their search bot has found a charged political term: An ism, a religion, a search term they’re watching. Then these people paid to argue will try and promote their country, party or corporate entity’s interest by a pithy insult to try and discredit you. I recommend not arguing back, you’re not getting paid to do so.
When a fool is annoyed, he quickly lets it be known. Smart people will ignore an insult.
Proverbs 12:16 (GNT).
A lot of these insults and argument bait are not well thought out. When your job is to start arguments with as many people as possible, you don’t really start out elaborate. So a person might post an elaborate and well thought out, good idea and an argument bot might insult it with the nonsense that the idea covers. Then the guy with a good idea feels the need to argue back because he had a grand idea, and feels the one attacking his idea isn’t smart enough to get it. If they get into a drawn-out argument though, both sides can look the fool. So the idea is to avoid arguing with fools.
Don’t ever feel that you need to argue back anything. I’ve had lots of people take my words out of context to look bad. It is like the first animated Scooby-Doo movie where Fred is going like, “If you didn’t like me, you’d probably edit what I said to say ‘Coolsville sucks'” Then the reporter actually does that and plays on the news Shaggy going, “Coolsville sucks.” People do that a lot online. They realize you will not respond to trolls, so they try and twist your words to mean things they obviously didn’t. They’re reasoning is, “If I can’t get this guy to respond, I’ll try and make him look like such a bad guy by twisting his words, that he’ll have to respond that what I am saying is wrong. Then I will reply again by twisting his words! By the time it is all over, I’ll have accused him of every evil thing, and he’ll look like a fool trying to defend himself against so many accusations.”
Remember, you don’t ever have to reply to anyone. Jesus didn’t even reply to the accusers going to crucify him at certain points. Jesus knew he was going to be crucified so maybe he didn’t even bother mincing word at places. Also, it comes off as cool that you don’t have time for the haters. Don’t waste much time with arguments with haters who reject Jesus. Remember the original call to the apostles was that when rejected in one town, go to another. Just go witness to other people, and pray they find out about Jesus by someone. You don’t need to argue back.
Thoughtless words can wound as deeply as any sword, but wisely spoken words can heal.
Proverbs 12:18 (GNT).
, James Sager
I posted this article to Reddit and got this reply by /u/rockman4140: ‘While I do agree with almost everything said in here, the stance of debating people is not for the person you are debating with, but for the onlookers.’
To which I reply:
I used to hold that stance too. The first seven years of me being a Christian was arguing with everyone I could find about God being real and Jesus loving them. I figured with the perfect argument script, I could reel them into realizing they’re logically inconsistent.
I actually got very good at showing people their logical fallacies. I could get them tapping out in two or three responses sometimes. They did not actually tap out but did “sand in the eyes” diversions. An example would be, “No one could know anything. Prove solipsism is incorrect.” Then you’d go, “If no one knows anything, you would not know the words I am speaking.” That is another example of a diversion. Now you’re no longer arguing about Jesus being a historical figure but talking about something random and irrelevant. All this despite most historians believing he existed.
I discovered that because they did not want to accept they are wrong and had to resort to “sand in the eyes” dirty tricks, they weren’t out to learn a thing, to begin with. They just wanted to win an argument! Then I further reasoned, “If people just want to win arguments, this means they also will be pushed away from your position the more you argue with them. It is best to not argue at all, as to give someone else a chance to get through to them.”
Wouldn’t you know that a few years later, scientists themselves found what I discovered earlier to be true? There are studies they run that say, “The more you argue with people, the less they like your position.” Be careful how you argue knowing this, you can push polarization of positions.
Photo Credit: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-is-2020/201905/the-secret-avoiding-arguments-difficult-people
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed by the website attributed to the photo credit are their own, FSS does neither claim to advocate or disagree with them explicitly.