If a religious person has to use apologetics to win a debate against whomever?

Honestly, I think the apologist has probably lost the debate just walking into it.

When you get right down to it, apologetics is really the fine art of saying "okay, so it turns out it's not true, but here's how we can all pretend it still is." Using apologetics is to admit your initial starting position is false. If it were true, it could stand on its merits without you having to prop it up with apologetic arguments.

I'm afraid Ken Ham is correct (at least when it comes to Christianity). The Bible must be wholly, literally true. It cannot be "metaphorically true" or "allegorically true" because in order to be either a metaphor or an allegory, something must first be literally false. By definition, the truth cannot be founded upon a falsehood.

Unfortunately, he skids right off the rails and slams headfirst into the wall of reason after that by deciding the logical thing to do is to ignore all evidence to the contrary and conclude the Bible is correct, and not observable reality... but his initial point still remains valid.

The work must be correct as-is, and apologetics admits it is not.

However, that admission isn't really important to apologists because apologetics is, essentially, the following:

"I believe Harry Potter is a true story about an orphaned wizard boy grows up at #4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, and who goes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and finds the Philosopher's Stone and fights Lord Voldemort and died for the sake of mankind and returned from the grave and defeated Lord Voldemort through magic, and...

"What's that? There's no #4 Privet Drive? Well, we don't have all the archaeological evidence, it could have been overlooked by the city planners drawing up the subsequent maps of the city, and... there's no Little Whinging at all?

"Well, you see, Little Whinging is probably an informal name used by the locals, or perhaps a metaphor for the constant small ways in which the evils of the world irritate us. But the part about Harry Potter being born in Godric's Hollow and growing up in...

"Are you SURE there's no such place as Godric's Hollow? Okay, but he definitely grew up in the London area because... no records of any kind? No birth certificate, adoption records, vaccination records, school registrations, school records... none of it? Records can be lost over time.

"In any case, that doesn't detract from the fact he came back from the dead and fought Voldemort after all those horrible disasters befell London and...

"Oh for Pete's sake, there weren't ANY disasters like you see in the movies or the books? Hang on, hang on, there's got to be something.

"AH-HAH! A Harry Potter was born in Britain in 1921 and joined the army in 1938. He was killed in Palestine in 1939 and subsequently buried in what is now present day Israel, and we can verify all of that... so that proves there WAS a Harry Potter... which in turn means you should believe he was an orphaned wizard boy who rose from the dead to defeat Voldemort and..."

Apologetics is a way to admit your original position is not true, attach that position to the evidence which proves it untrue, and then claim your original position is true because it is now attached to the facts proving it untrue, and those facts are themselves true.

It's a logical game of three card monte.

The truth does not need apologetics.

Apologetics is an inherently flawed endeavor. It attempts to either defend or prove something that is by its very nature indefensible and impossible to prove, faith. The Bible itself defines faith as the "substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen" according to, I think, Hebrews 11:1 if I recall right.

So to put it a little more succinctly, if you have to resort to apologetics you've already lost in my opinion.

That would depend on each debate and how well the religious person used apologetics and how well the non-religious person debated.

Do you understand the meaning of apologetics? It's a word to mean defending ones faith. If you want a debate, must you handicap your rival by not allowing him to make his argument? No claim of victory here. There was no debate.

If the non-Christian ignores the apologetics ,then the religious is the winner. You cannot attack a tenet without having sufficient arguments.

Apologetics technically doesn't imply the logically fallacious arguments that religious proponents put forth.

You are commingling "winning a debate" with being 'true'. I can win a debate of declaring that the moon is a cube yet that is independent of the truth.

Winning or not winning debates isnt related to the truth.

God bless you.

I suppose winning here means turning the heart of the detractors back to God. Victory is ultimately in the hands of those who hate God. They have the power to choose. Victory is decided by the panel of judges and / or the opinion of the audience. But real victory has nothing to do with all those. The individual happening in the heart of all concerned is beyond our capacity to know.

The 'winner' of the debate would be determined by who was swayed by the arguments presented. It would depend on the strength of each debater's rhetorical skills.

I am not sorry that I have lost this debate.

You threw it out here and where did it go?

I lost your debate and I doubt if I can find another just like it. Not even on eBay.