We are all afraid of death, well most of us I should say. That fear explains a lot of our behaviour, and with that in mind we could cut each other a little slack.
Take those on the forum who come here to defend either the Witnesses or their belief in God. Why are they often so fierce, bitter and caustic? I say it's obvious. They are not merely defending their view of the world or how it really is. By countering other conceptions of reality they are ultimately defending their precious and hard-fought hope that death itself may be overcome. Ask them to give up their beliefs and in effect you are asking them to give in to death. No wonder they fight so hard! So let's treat them a bit more gentle, and recognise that the "facts" are probably not what they are crying out for, despite protestations to the contrary. Arguing over footnotes of evidence may not help. From my own experience I know that when I used to wage war with bad ol' apostates over the Internet it was because I was afraid that bit by bit my fantasy that death might be avoided was being dismantled. That was what was driving me when I think about it. There were other factors in the mix too including pride and my life situation to be sure, but the fear of death looms large.
But what about those of us who have lost faith in the Witnesses and in God: why are we often just as fierce, caustic and bitter as those defenders of their faith who are trying to assuage their own mortality? That makes no sense does it? We have largely given up on hopes for immortality, so it can't be fear of death driving our vehement defence of our worldview. A pure devotion to the "truth" of the situation does not explain it all either. I reckon it often boils down to envy of believers and the hope they have been able to maintain against the odds. When I lost my faith I got a reality check that wiped out my ability to believe in a future paradise or any kind of life after death. I certainly don't wish the world really was this way, but it "is" and we have to deal with it. Often I even think I would rather still believe if that were possible, and I know others here have expressed similar sentiments. So no wonder we sometimes envy those on a certain level who have managed to retain their faith either in the Witness worldview or in a personal God awaiting us when we die. Of course there are lots of things we do not envy, least of all the ignorance and the mind control involved in believing in the Witnesses, and other belief systems for that matter. We don't envy that. But the hope they have, I am sure we all envy that sometimes. It's simply not fair they get to still believe it all, when I can no longer bring myself to believe it! And that can drive us to be a little less kind during debates than perhaps do justice to our personality. It's a bit like having dropped our ice cream on the floor we feel the urge to knock the ice cream out the other's hand. That's sounds mean doesn't it? Well I think it really can be mean like that.
Believers are driven by death fear and non-believers are driven by hope envy, and the results are debates that often veer off the page onto the personal and become bitter.
If this argument has some "truth", then maybe looking at the situation this way can help us be more reflexive when debating each other: believers and non-believers.