Apologetics aren ' t meant to convince nonbelievers . Instead , they are designed to reduce the cognitive dissonance of current believers . Bingo . My break with a lifetime of Christianity began with a Sunday School book . I was teaching the class , and as I was studying for class it occurred to me that the entire book we were using was really nothing but a string of apologetics . Some of the apologetics were pretty weak . Some apologetics contradicted other apologetics . As I thought about it I wondered why so many apologetics were needed if the Bible really represented some type of universal truth . <| sep |> You should read the whole story and make a conclusion , was it a shitty outcome ? Yes . But it ' s not as black and white as it seems