system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Should most Philosophical Debates be extremely narrow in scope?

I have been following more debates over the last 3 or 4 years and find it increasingly frustrating that both participants in a lot of "debates" fire off 5 or 10 arguments in their opening remarks, then when it is time for them to address these arguments only have time to respond in depth to 1 or 2 of them, and as the debate goes on each debater calls out the other on not responding to the majority of their arguments...  This can be either accidental or intentional and while the discussion can still be valuable, ultimately frustrating.

I follow a lot of debates on morality and religion / atheism as well as veganism so maybe this is just restricted to these areas.
gpt
Genuinely hostile debates are basically not useful for anything, and there really isn’t any point in watching them. The only useful purpose of a live debate (that isn’t completely hostile) is if the speakers can come to clarify what exactly the fundamental point of disagreement is. 

Genuine ‘debate’ in philosophy occurs in writing. In a live debate setting it’s impossible to thoughtfully reflect on something you’ve just been told, and thoughtful reflection *is* the core of all intellectual enterprises. You need time to think through an argument. 

If you are genuinely interested in the debate on atheism, you are wasting your time watching William Lane Craig vs. Some Atheist. Actually go out and get one of Plantinga’s books and try to read it carefully. And then seek out replies other philosophers have written, and so on.