The Warfare Is Mental

Lyell Claims Earth Is 6,000 Years Old! or, False Argument #21: Bible Teaches Interfaith Love Is Sin

February 14, 2009

Alright, so I had stayed up until the morning yesterday writing and backlogging what I feel are three interesting and different posts for the upcoming week, on the decision that I was going to take a 10-day break from posting and blogging.

So what happened?

Well, I woke up this morning and after getting into the swing of things, popped over to DA where what I read in the first few sentences just happened to comprise perhaps the biggest example to date of an exegetical post of Ebonmuse's that completely misses the mark.
So I was overcome with an irresistable force to write, and barfed out the following.

All for the better, I suppose. It didn't take long, and I had been wondering what I would stumble across for #21 in the series. Although admittedly skewering a fish in a barrel, this fits the bill perfectly.

False Argument #18: Personal Anecdotes = Empirical Evidence, or I Believe Mother Teresa, Not George Bush

January 14, 2009

Please, somebody help me determine that I am not crazy, mentally deficient, or possibly worse. I've now heard the following argument in the blogoshpere two times, and I immediately pegged it as a fallacious case of special pleading with absolutely zero bearing in logic whatsoever.

What do you think? Here's the argument, from a website titled, Why I Hate Jesus:

False Argument #17: Bible Claims Those Who’ve Never Heard Of Jesus Go To Hell

December 18, 2008

For the past three days I've been spending way too much time on an atheist forum where over a dozen commenters have taken me strongly to task on this issue. Yet strangely, when asked for scriptural support, they offer nothing but the standard verses relating to salvation.

I agree that the Bible says Jesus is the only way to God. Does this mean that those who have never heard of Jesus go automatically to hell? My atheist opponents cry an emphatic yes.

But even a basic Bible education disproves this idea. If this interpretation is correct, then Moses, Isaac, Abraham, Daniel, Isaiah, David, Solomon and ALL of the other Old Testament figures would ALL be in hell, correct? Yet scripture clearly indicates otherwise, and each of these people lived and died before Jesus ever walked the Earth.

False Argument #16: Bible Offers Contradictory Criteria For Salvation

December 17, 2008

The question of biblical inerrancy comes up often in debates between believers and skeptics of all stripe, with the typical formula being gross overstatements on behalf of skeptics, and inefficient responses to these gross overstatements on behalf of believers. At the request of a commenter on DA calling himself Brad, I said that I would take a look at an essay titled Foundation of Sand, alleged to prove biblical contradiction and error.
Read More →

False Argument #15: The Telepathy Tropes

June 17, 2008

There are two opposite polarities of misinformation surrounding the phenomenon of telepathy. The first erroneously dismisses the entire gamut of legitimate evidence, and the second erroneously bolsters what little legitimate evidence actually exists. That no scientifically acceptable, persuasive evidence exists and that telepathy is a scientifically proven phenomenon are both equally false arguments. Although the phenomenon is inherently difficult to test systematically and is by no means proven, significant telepathic experiments have been conducted resulting in published works and peer-reviewed papers.

False Argument #14: Microevolution And Macroevolution Are Creationist Fabrications

June 1, 2008

I read a comment on a thread the other day that seemed to be making a modified version of a false argument I heard proposed about six months ago in the blogosphere. Unfortunately I couldn't track down the comment, but I do recall the first place I heard its premise:

"First, just so everyone's clear: 'Macro-evolution' and 'micro-evolution' are made-up words concocted by creationists to make themselves sound scientific. Biologists don't use them. They're scientifically meaningless. They're just different stages in the evolutionary process; 'macro' is just 'micro' over a longer period of time. Also, 'macro-evolution' (if people insist on calling it that) has been observed, both in the field and in the lab. Just so we're clear."

False Argument #13: Triumph Of Natural Explanations

May 30, 2008

[Blogger and The Dark Man author MS Quixote addresses this argument here]

There’s a rhetorically persuasive argument that alleges to confront the argument from design and goes something like this: Time and time again, natural explanations dethrone supernatural explanations for mysterious phenomena, while supernatural explanations never replace natural ones. What exactly do we mean when we use the word “natural?” Taken at face value, natural describes a mental construct with which we frame the phenomena of the physical universe.

In the context of arguing a natural cause for the universe while simultaneously rebutting the argument from design, one blogger explains the argument like this: “The number of times that a once-mysterious phenomenon had a divine or supernatural explanation successfully replaced by a natural one—thousands upon thousands upon thousands. The number of times that a once-mysterious phenomenon had a natural explanation successfully replaced by a divine or supernatural one—zero.” Rhetorically persuasive, isn’t it?

False Argument #12: Atheism Is Scientifically Tenable

May 19, 2008

It's often easy to spot faulty reasoning in somebody else's belief system, but how many of us rigorously apply equal scrutiny to our own cherished worldview?

The failure to do so is known as special pleading and I was recently accused of this intellectual atrocity by a good friend of mine while discussing the movie Zeitgeist. After weeks of hearing nothing but hype and praise about this film I'd love to tell you how disappointed I was with it, but now is not the time and you're more than welcomed to read the review. All you need to know for our dialog here is that the opening segments show in quick succession visual images depicting the epic problems of humanity, asking what could possibly be their cause.

False Argument #11: Darwinism, Atheism And Evolution Lead To Genocide, Fascism, Holocaust

May 17, 2008

A common false argument based in misunderstanding and fear directly blames Darwinism, atheism and evolution for such atrocities as genocide, fascism, racism and the Holocaust. Like most false arguments, this one has some degree of basis in reality, but not of the degree that can support such illogical claims.

This false argument has its grain of truth in the history of eugenics. Defined neutrally, eugenics is the study of human betterment through means of gene manipulation and control. The movement itself is said to begin with Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin. In his work Hereditary Genius, Galton states his opinion that humanity should be eugenically regimented. Charles’ son Leonard Darwin was Chairman of the British Eugenics Society between 1911-1928, and vice-President of the 1912 and 1921 International Eugenics Congresses, the first of which was an offshoot of an earlier meeting by the predominantly German-controlled International Society for Racial Hygiene.

False Argument #9: Bible Claims Sun Revolves Around Earth

Science itself is a continually evolving enterprise and mistakes are a natural part of the evolutionary process. For religious expressions of this peculiar human ability to error, one need look no further than the well-publicized story of the Italian scientist Galileo, (1564-1642) prosecuted by the Roman Catholic Church on grounds that his claim Earth revolved around the sun was heretical. First we must secure accurate definitions of the pertinent terms.

The word heretical can be defined as contrary to the chartered traditions of the Church, and heliocentrism is the notion that the sun is the center of our solar system. Is this idea at arms with anything the Bible actually says, or was it at arms with the power structure’s interpretation of scripture at that particular time?

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