Your question could make a good point, and I wish I could agree with you. Unfortunately, inherent in the claims you make to form the grammar of the question, are false premises. If religion was a private matter, there would be no debate. If muslims weren't blowing themselves up, if jews weren't killing untold infants through "private" practices performed on the genitals of said infants causing infection and fatal std's, if Christians weren't killing 100s of millions of people a year by blocking stem cell research, AND trying to get nonsense taught in science classes around the country, is Catholics weren't knee deep in a mass pedophilia scandal, if Mormons and scientologists weren't blatant cults splitting families apart and ruining the lives of more people than those who profess the faith, if just these "scratch the surfaces" things weren't true, you'd have the ghost of a point.
The reason why the debate must go on, and there must be pushback is because 90% of the people on the planet are basing their lives around fairy tales and wishful thinking. All religions are used a substitute for wisdom and quite frankly I think civilization and the survival of the human race is much more important than the deeply held feelings of a majority of people who simply find it inconvenient to take responsibility for their own actions and refuse to think critically about the important questions we all think about.

Debate is important from the standpoint that people on the sidelines - lurkers - may be undecided. A well crafted, mature, respectful argument may be what tips them over by the beauty of its reason, logic, and common sense.

Here's the problem: If people just had their own spiritual whatever and it was internal to them and it was private and so on, then that would be nice and they could believe any darn thing they like, including God. But, they don't just do that, do they. No, they have religions, with churches, and theology, and morals, priests and Popes and alike, and education for children to teach them their damned theology, as well as frightening them with damnation, and then they support politicians to promote their beliefs, and they also oppose things that are not consistent with their theology, and tell adults who they can have consensual sexual relations with, and how and when they can have babies, and on top of that they want to have wars with other religions which haven't seen the one true faith that they know, so, yeah, goddamn it, we should keep arguing with them, challenge their unproven claims, their appalling history, dreadful practices and anti modernist thinking in the faint hope that one day, just maybe, they might just all f--k off so we can have a better, rational, science based world!!!

"Has anyone ever been argued out of a belief in God or any question of faith? Is faith or belief premised on rationality?"

Yes, it happens every day.

Well, I was convinced through argument and reason.

When I was religious, I prayed in private. I never had any desire to have the country make laws against birth control, same sex marriage or abortion etc. I didn't want images from my faith erected in the court house. To me it was a personal thing. If everybody was as respectful of others who don't hold their beliefs, I would argue FOR their faith, but that's not how it is in the south, and I suspect the rest of the country.

Published debates and arguments were what I went to when I began to question my faith and these resources were very helpful. Even if the people arguing don't change their viewpoints the audience can benefit.

Someone, a friend, convinced me years ago.

As soon as you can convince religious people that spirituality is a private matter, then I will be all in for not debating it.

When I finally began to allow myself to listen to that ‘still small voice’ of doubt, it opened a crack in the foundation of my belief system. It has often been said that one doesn’t reason out of a position one didn’t reason into—I couldn't disagree more. When my doubts led me to question the faith of my fathers, it was reason and logic that I grew to rely upon. That led me to discover books by authors who had rejected their faith, as well as chat rooms filled with skeptics, in those early days of the web. And it was here that the arguments that had been forming in my own mind were strengthened and deepened by others who had preceded me in their journey of de-conversion. I had become a nullifidian.

The term argument has not always been associated with heated exchanges. In my experience, we need more rational, classical arguments about all of our beliefs and preconceptions. There is a shortage of critical thinking and reasoning skills in this country, and while religion holds no monopoly here, it is a good place to start! Religious beliefs are often too deeply planted to be uprooted by a single argument or debate, but small seeds of doubt must nevertheless be sown in order to create that necessary cognitive dissonance that can one day sprout into seedlings of sanity, and eventually replace the invasive plant of faith.

If we just changed one mind it's a step in the right direction and that's all that matters

AMEN!
Better to live and let live, as long as others do the same.

Spirituality and religion are not the same thing. I think that is the only obstacle to tolerance.

"I've never seen any point to arguing about such things. Debates about God seem silly and pointless. Since spirituality is a very private matter, it seems especially pointless to have such discussions through text on the Internet."

This statement seems to fly in the face of 3000 years of recorded history, which restlessly demonstrates that the belief in god forms the basis for the way people live in most world cultures.

The concept of a god implies the existence of a necessary being, an absolute, which is an important constituent in thought because without some form of absolute everything is contingent, and therefore relative, but then there is no truth.

So we deny the existence of a god, and live in a contingent world, but how do we replace what taking god out of the picture leaves out?

Since both sides make points that cannot be actually proven, I see no need to argue the subject either. Using logic to make them squirm a bit can be fun though

I don't bother. in fact, i came here to get away from that crap.

To debate about god...or any other imaginary thing...is a waste of intelligent time. Whenever a person attempts to talk to me about the bible -for instance- I tell them I have my own "bathroom" paper.
Several people have asked me "How is the Pope?" since he is from my other country. Well, they didn't like when I mentioned to them about him playing soccer on the beach...LOL

It’s pretty pointless to argue religion with the religious nuts. They’re to indoctrinated and closed to accept anything rational on the subject.

Arguing about anything is pointless. Nobody is going to change their mind about anything. I post to find others with the same beliefs as myself or to bring information to people whose sources most likely aren't giving them correct information.

I won't argue about god.

Like many others have said, I focus less on the believes than on the self-righteous, saved, forgiven, holier-than-thou attitude that religion gives them and what that does to their relations with reasonable. mature individuals.

I do not see any reason to try and convince any godder of their fantasies. They are perfectly content to believe in the adult equivalent of Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. They will go to amazing lengths to hang on to their hallucinations no matter their lack of evidence. It's pointless.

There is one true God Jehovah Adonai the God of Israel and the Bible says that a fool has said in his heart there is no God

I agree.