It's painfully apparent to many of you that I do not hide my lack of belief in the supernatural, god(s), and outright deny BibleGod. Actually, on these boards I am quite strident about my lack of belief and in my ridicule of other specious beliefs like big foot, visiting extraterrestrials, 911 conspiracies, compassionate conservatism, creationism and other woo. Yes, that's correct - belief in God is in the same category as these other crank beliefs.

For this - as you would expect, I get some attention for blogging in a community that is largely conservative Christian and historically Republican. This attention is usually from the soul-winner, busy-body Christian that assumes that I would want to spend an eternity with them. I am not complaining though. We non-believers and religious freethinkers, up until recently, have been a silent minority. To paraphrase PZ Meyers, it's about time we push our arms out and made room for ourselves in this society.

Invariably, the soul-winner fails to have a convincing counter-argument against the incoherence of their beliefs. Instead, the tactic they resort to is to prey on me. I mean, pray for me. Where no evidence or sound reasoning is offered, emotional blackmail is substituted. As insulting as this is, I am still open to the possibility that BibleGod will intervene and answer the Christian's prayer.

Awhile back, I was informed by different Christians on this board that they would pray for me. I challenged them to do so.

Here's an email conversation between myself and a Christian from June. I'll pick up the discussion where the attempt to convince me by prayer begins. I've annotated some of the responses for brevity and clarity sake and will keep the identity of the emailer anonymous. The busy-body is in bold. I'm in regular.

(NOTE TO READERS: I read the Bible literally like a Christian fundamentalist and take the view that the Bible is inerrant because it is God's word. In this respect, I am a fundamentalist. By doing so, I lay waste to the argument that I am interpreting, which liberals and moderates are so guilty of doing. IMO, fundamentalist Christian are the only true Christians - which makes them hostile to a free, civil society.)

Off to pray. And yes, I do pray for nonbelievers like you. You may have a serious problem if God and Jesus do in fact exist. Can't wait until the end, it will be too late for all.

Good luck with your prayers! Hey, instead of praying for all apostates like myself, just pray for me to come to God. When it fails, could you tell me why God has not intervene to reveal himself to me like Paul on his way to Damascus? Yes, I will end up in hell. But your going to Muslim Hell anyway as you believe that Jesus is divine. Whereas you reject Islam's threat of Hell, I go one step further and reject both. And don't throw free-will in the mix, as I will answer that if I don't not have full knowledge of God's existence, then how can I truly be making an informed choice?

I did pray for you again today. But God has come to you. You just won't accept it or admit it. I will go to no ones hell. I know I have a place with God in heaven.

Prayer. I guess your not a true Christian. Shucks...

How would you know Matt?

Well, for the Bible tells me so. "I tell you therefore: everything you ask and pray for, believe that you have it already, and it will be yours. ..(Mark 11:20-25). I have to ask you, where is your faith in Jesus? Only by having a true faith, will Jesus words as reported by Mark come true. We know that God never lies and that everything in the Bible is the inspired word of God. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16) Otherwise, all of the Bible is unreliable. Christians can not pick and choose what of the Bible is allegory.

But you already know of this. I'm sure you read your Bible and not just have it didactically feed back to you at Sunday only.

Since I have not come to your faith and threats and allusions of eternity in Hell "You may have a serious problem if God and Jesus do in fact exist." and after apologizing for calling me a liar, you go on to say in the course of this discussion "You just won't accept it or admit it."

You're way off base with this one.

I'm off base? I based my answer in the Bible and from what other apologists tell me. I was a Christian once. If you reject my answer as to why you are not a true Christian, then please take it up with God - he wrote the Bible.

My answer speaks volumes and speaks for itself.

I see. Well, it speaks to you, but to you only. Too bad that you can not write volumes based upon that "speaking" as well. I was looking forward to a good Biblical debate. :( 

Well, keep praying.

My reason is the one you never thought of: you don't want to learn about God and I'm not the type to shove it down your throat. But even more important is the fact that I know very few atheists and have had few, if any, conversation like this. I could see shortly on that you have no intention of believing in God. And it's not my job to go further to convince you. The nonbelievers I have met were all through our church. And they converted due to what I said has already happened to you: A sign from God.

I would love to learn about God. But first you must present your best evidence in order to convince me. You sitting on the other side of the internets stating that I've already received this revelation is silly. Did God communicate to you what this revelation was? If so please tell me.

You also assume that I have not tried to learn about God. My wife thinks I am obsessed with god, but really I'm obsessed with religion. It's a variety of human expression and experience and its been nearly the only way to speculate on the supernatural. Well, until science came along and we were able to determine more about the universe we live in.

Also, it makes me quite angry that you keep stating that I am lying in some way.

Turning from this, if you would like to present your best evidence or argument for God, please do. Feel free to cite the Bible or any other exegesis you like. If you would like to present your personal experiences, you may do so as well. However, what would be the point if you presented your personal experience only after I came to god? Is your evidence from personal experience not convincing enough? Apparently it must not be, and you seem to realize this anyway. Functionally, you make an appeal to blind faith. I am asking you to justify that faith on reason.

I really appreciate you taking the time to reply to me. If the courage of your convictions can not weather my objections, then perhaps you should a) refrain from implying that I am lying b) threatening my soul with hell, and c) give me your best argument. 

I never called you a lair in these recent emails or suggested it.

You are quite unreasonable and I've been more than patient with you.

These are examples where you imply that I am a liar:

01. "Hi Matt...I did pray for you again today. But God has come to you. You just won't accept it or admit it."
02. "I could see shortly on that you have no intention of believing in God..."
03.  "And they converted due to what I said has already happened to you: A sign from God."

You keep asserting that some proof has come to me and that I am denying it. So am I a liar or not?

And in this quote you try to extort me with the threat of Hell:

"You may have a serious problem if God and Jesus do in fact exist."

There is nothing that I said about Christian belief that is not in concordance with what Christians largely believe.  

The reasoning of the busy-body is transparently hollow. When this emotional blackmail fails - the busy-body believer is left alienating the person he hopes to convince and possibly convert.

In nearly all facets of life we demand evidence.

Existence of big foot? Sure, possible - but a carcass of the animal would be conclusive proof. On the scale of unbelievable claims, big foot is on the lower end. Immaterial beings with no testable or identifiable characteristics that exist outside the normal universe and not beholden to its physical laws is on the extreme upper end. Off the scale, actually.

Yet, when the non-believer requests evidence for the existence of God, we are told by the believer to expect none and that faith without evidence is sufficient enough. It is this type of faith which is further reinforced as a virtue. In fact, all that is being reinforced is ignorance.

It was this pursuit of evidence that I had requested nicely of this busy-body what this "sign from God" was. Perhaps he did receive a revelation. That would be exciting! I would have evidence. And the more explicit this believer could be, the more likely that a god could exist.***

Instead, I was insulted and my non-existent afterlife threatened for a very reasonable request. 

Any they wonder why they fail?

***There are caveats to this however. Failed explanation of one thing does not necessarily make another explanation more plausible. When this plead is made, we formally have an argument from ignorance. More on that later.
 

Introduction

The Straw Man fallacy is often committed by creationists in their defense of a literal creation by a supernatural agency when attempting to refute evolution.

This fallacy can be quite effective - if you are not on guard for it, or do not understand or aware of the opponents position.

Defined

Instead of representing the opponents argument accurately, the petitioner rephrases or misrepresents the oppositions argument as to make it easier to defeat. The petitioner then declares victory over this invented argument.

Therefore the allusion of a straw man. They are easy to knock down.

Example

According to his (Charles Darwin) evolution scenario, inanimate substances came together by chance to give rise to the first living cell.

---

"Living things did not come into being through the imaginary processes of evolution."

This example is from the Atlas of Creation by Harun Yahya. A Muslim creationist. Yes, thats right a Muslim creationist.

Like many creationists, Harun Yahya, restates evolution as a theory on the origin of life. Evolution is a theory on the origin of species. Meaning, Darwinian evolution starts after life begins.

Therefore, evolution can not account for abiogenesis. Because Yahya uses a straw man, it allows for an easy victory, despite the fact that it came at the expense of intellectual honesty.

In Conclusion

Straw Man arguments are an intellectually dishonest way of arguing against a position that one wishes to refute. The victory allegedly won is therefore useless.

Arguments and positions should be honestly confronted and then rejoined on the merits of the position, not one imagined.

Political debate is rife with this one, and I've been the subject and a focus of this type of attack countless times at LCL.com. I thought it would be helpful to make it the focus of this weeks fallacy. Again, this article is not meant to be the exhaustive work on the subject.

Defined

Examples:

01. Hamas had nice things to say about Barack Obama. Therefore Obama is a weak on defense and will destroy the county.

02. George Bush said "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier......just so long as I'm the dictator." Therefore, Bush will turn the US into a dictatorship and destroy the county.

In example one, whether or not some organization had nice things to say about Obama does not change what policies (Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006) and what statements (Obama's speech to AIPAC June 6, 2008) he has made in the past. Hamas later retracted, and McCain's campaign applied Hamas quote out of context in order to spread fear and suspicion.

For example two, despite the fact that Bush stated this does not mean he wants to transform the U.S. into his own private kingdom and that every policy decision he makes is a step toward this goal. Whether the policy is domestic like No Child Left Behind (Vote), or foreign, like the Iraq War (Joint Resolution on Iraq) these would not have become reality with or without tacit compliance from Congressional Republicans and Democrats alike. Bush still has to rely on the legislative process in many cases. Also, this quote is often used out of context.

As a side note, I really wish I had a nickel every time when either some Democrat or Republican used one of these.

In Conclusion

Both of these examples are non-sequiturs as the conclusions we are being led into are not supported by the evidence. In fact, the evidence (if we bother to check) rebukes this type of indirect ad hominem attack. Honest debate should be about the merits of a policy or a belief, and not made as an attack through fear and suspicion.

In recent discussions with my fellow, passionate, bloggers, it has come to my attention that there are some misunderstanding and confusion of what it means to support your claims. So, I'd like to help my fellow bloggers and readers to understand what it means when you have the burden of proof. I'll try to sum this up neatly and try not to get overly technical. I'll probably be skipping lots of other things I should mention though, so don't take this as a definitive work on the subject.

Arguments Defined

When making an argument you are making a claim about the nature of reality. All arguments have premises and conclusions, and all arguments are either strong or weak in various degrees. Arguments may cite evidence as support of its claim. Arguments are not the final say on a proposition, they are at best, an approximation as to what we think is probably true. Arguments are not truth in themselves. A stronger argument may have some predictive quality. In this way, an argument somewhat functions like a scientific theory. It is open to criticism and as new evidence is uncovered. Basically, if a claim can not be falsified, then it is not an argument but an assertion.

Also, arguments always take the positive position, that is, they are trying to substantiate what is being claimed. Negative statements are not arguments, nor are they assertions. For instance the statement: I do not believe in God. There is no position being taken and this statement is a negation. You can't prove a negative. Therefore, negative statements are free from the burden of proof.

The Burden of Proof Defined

If we apply this general principle to the positive  of "our local newspaper is liberally biased" we then have to ask to petitioner on what grounds. If the petitioner states that there is empirical evidence and research to prove this, we must then ask for the research and the evidence. We must also ask the petitioner what are his terms so that we may qualify the evidence that is collected, and this in turn helps us to understand how the premises of the argument substantiates the claim. We must then examine the quality of the evidence and establish that the evidence reasonably supports the claim and is of sufficient verisimilitude. As we continue our examination, we dig and try to uncover errors in reasoning and in observation. Has the petitioner made any category errors or commit any confirmation bias when selecting his evidence? Has the petitioner addressed and suggested how his conclusion may be falsified? Did the petitioner have his study or his evidence peer reviewed or vetted? Did the petitioner misunderstand the evidence? In the same way we would scrutinize a research paper, so too do we scrutinize an argument's premises in determining the likelihood of the truth of the claim.

If a number of these things are satisfied, and the petitioner has fulfilled the obligation of quality evidence and sound error free reasoning, we can say with reasonable certainty that the argument probably is a truthful proposition.

Shifting the The Burden of Proof

However, if the petitioner does not provide quality evidence nor defines his terms and refuses to do so when asked, we can safely dismiss the claim. If the premises are weak and the evidence cited is not of equal integrity to the claim ,we can again dismiss it. We can equally dismiss the claim if the petitioner asks you to do the research for him when pressed.

For example:

Since you don't believe that invisible green leprechauns are cause of alcoholism, it is up to you to show that they do not exist.

Clearly, this is a shift in the burden of proof.

In Conclusion

In order to satiate the burden of proof, plausible arguments are as only as good as the clarity of its premises, quality of evidence, and reasoning without fallacy of composition as possible. No argument is a substitute for an objective fact, but can function within reasonable doubt or certainty as to their plausibility. It is up to the petitioner to support his claim as free of fallacy as possible and respond to challenges to the claim without errors in reasoning, or by shifting the burden of proof.