Textbooks may accuse biblical creationists of using logical fallacies to defend their beliefs. It’s possible to use bad logic to argue for something true, so calling a message false because someone uses fallacies to defend it…is a fallacy. Still, bad logic lowers apparent credibility. To learn how to avoid using bad logic, let’s begin examining real-life claims about “common creationist fallacies.”
Up Next in S2: Fallacies
-
Appeals to Ignorance and Incredulity
Claiming that something must be true because there’s no evidence to say otherwise is a logical fallacy called Appeal to Ignorance. Another version of this fallacy is the Argument from Incredulity, which suggests something must be false because it’s hard to imagine being true. Here’s how to recogn...
-
The Elephant, the Blind Men, and the ...
Analogies can make arguments sound persuasive, but they can’t prove anything is true. Tips for answering analogies that argue against the Bible include finding an important difference between the things being compared and using big-picture questions to make the analogy argue for a biblical worldv...
-
Answering Straw-Man Arguments
Straw-man fallacies re-frame strong positions as weak ones, while motte-and-bailey fallacies re-frame weak positions as a strong ones. In both cases, you can respond by bringing the discussion back to what the original position said.
