the question, Beeskee me hearty, is why do you have to argue with a zealot? Because honestly, if it's not important, just say politely, "fine. I won't throw my understanding of things in your face, if you promise to do the same. Golden rule and all that."

If that won't work, well, consider attacking their base of stability. Claiming evolution isn't possible is tantamount to...
Oh, well darn.

See, any specific things I could say are against the board rules. I could phrase them as semi-religious examples of debate techniques, but that's still a violation of the spirit, if not the letter. I like Kpenguin and AverageJoe too much to do that :/

Um. Hm.

Ok, so.

If I tell you that the sun rises and sets over Equestria as an automatic function, and your argument is that that's impossible because it discounts the existence of Princess Celestia, I would rightfully point out that a thinking and intelligent princess would be clever enough to set up the automatic function herself, so that not all of her existence was consumed with sun micromanagement. Your argument defeats itself, because your argument requires Celestia to be too stupid to set up her affairs efficiently.

Thus, you are the one questioning the princess' capabilities, while I am in truth acknowledging her skill as beyond my own and unfathomable.
Does that help?

I want to say it's an exception that proves the rule, but that doesn't seem right.