While I sometimes debate atheists on this or that (such as denial of consciousness or "soul" or afterlife claims or resting on circular reasoning that they prima facie don't exist), their "100% assume nothing" stance is waaaaaay better to debate pretty much anything on vs. pretty much any person who takes seriously their (usually unfounded, at least empirically; I'm putting aside externally-unverifiable personal/subjective experiences here, which I do believe happen) religious beliefs.
It's been excruciating existing as the sole "loves to debate" member of my original nuclear family (who are all fairly hardcore Catholics; I was raised in that but my naturally-questioning naturally-curious nature eventually led me off that path). Sincere religious belief is almost anathema to sincere debate (since some things suddenly become "unquestionable" or "heretical to question"); and it seems that many people feel "lost" unless they have some framework to make sense of things... but even then, people use reasoning that just seems terrible to me (such as thanking God for the survivors of a disaster but not questioning God at all about the non-survivors; at least Mr. Rogers made some sense when he said "look to the rescuers").
It's been excruciating existing as the sole "loves to debate" member of my original nuclear family (who are all fairly hardcore Catholics; I was raised in that but my naturally-questioning naturally-curious nature eventually led me off that path). Sincere religious belief is almost anathema to sincere debate (since some things suddenly become "unquestionable" or "heretical to question"); and it seems that many people feel "lost" unless they have some framework to make sense of things... but even then, people use reasoning that just seems terrible to me (such as thanking God for the survivors of a disaster but not questioning God at all about the non-survivors; at least Mr. Rogers made some sense when he said "look to the rescuers").