# Fallacies ## Intro A *fallacy* is a bad pattern of reasoning that often sounds convincing. *No true Scotsman*, *ad hominem*, *straw man*, *begging the question*, you have probably heard the names. They show up constantly in debates about Christianity, especially online. This folder is the codex's collection of fallacy pages. Each entry covers what the fallacy actually is, how to spot it, and how to rebut it when it gets thrown at you. But there is a twist that makes this folder different from most fallacy guides. Half the time, when someone yells *that's a fallacy!* in an argument, the charge itself is wrong. The fallacy is not actually there. Someone reads a list of fallacies on a poster, then misuses the labels as conversation-stoppers. So every page here includes a section called *false-fallacy examples* that shows the test for distinguishing real cases from misapplied charges. Three directions to use the folder. First, when an atheist accuses you of a fallacy, look it up here and check whether the charge actually fits. Second, when you spot a real fallacy in someone else's argument, look up the diagnostic so you can name it cleanly. Third, when you read an apologetic argument yourself, run it through the relevant pages so you do not unknowingly commit the move you would catch in someone else. This is a working folder that grows as new patterns come up in real conversations. ## In full Master hub for the fallacy collection, informal-logic patterns that recur in apologetic discourse, with diagnostic, rebuttal, and **false-fallacy** treatment per entry. The collection is organized for both directions of deployment: how to spot and rebut a fallacy when used against you, AND how to recognize when the fallacy *charge* is misapplied (the most distinctive feature of this folder). This is a working folder. Entries are added on the §5.4 / autonomous-loop cadence. Each entry follows the shared structure documented at _template. ## Why a fallacy folder Apologetic discourse runs on informal-logic moves. The atheist polemicist deploys named fallacies as conversation-stoppers ("that's the no-true-Scotsman fallacy"; "you're committing the god-of-the-gaps fallacy"; "you're begging the question"). The Christian apologist either (a) confirms the charge and adjusts, (b) shows the charge is misapplied (the fallacy isn't actually present), or (c) turns the principle around and shows the charger commits the same fallacy. Most popular-fallacy-list resources (rationalwiki.org; Your Logical Fallacy Is; the "thou shalt not commit logical fallacies" poster) are strong on (a) and weak on (b) and (c). This folder corrects that imbalance, every entry includes a **"False-fallacy examples"** section showing the diagnostic that distinguishes legitimate cases from misapplied charges. ## Per-fallacy entry shape Each entry follows _template: 1. **Frontmatter**, `type: concept`, `fallacy_category` (informal / formal / rhetorical / cognitive-bias), `severity`, aliases, parent-concepts 2. **Lead paragraph**, definition, canonical form, brief origin 3. **Canonical structure**, formal/symbolic form 4. **How to spot it (diagnostic)**, 3-5 numbered markers 5. **Common apologetic deployment**, atheist-against-Christian + Christian counter-deployment when bidirectional 6. **How to rebut it**, 2-3 load-bearing rebuttal patterns 7. **False-fallacy examples**, cases where the fallacy is *named but doesn't apply* 8. **When it's actually fallacious**, clear cases where the charge sticks 9. **Christian scholarly resources**, Walton / Hurley / Copi + apologetic literature 10. **See also**, sister fallacies + relevant defeater syllogisms ## Catalog ### Informal fallacies, core 15 | Fallacy | Apologetic deployment | False-fallacy diagnostic | |---------|----------------------|--------------------------| | [No True Scotsman Fallacy](/codex/no-true-scotsman-fallacy/) | "Crusaders weren't real Christians" charged as NTS | Doctrinal-content distinction: NT supplies pre-existing internal-standard (Mt 7:21; 1 Jn 2:19) | | [Genetic Fallacy](/codex/genetic-fallacy/) | "you only believe Christianity because raised Christian" | Belief-genesis ≠ belief-truth (universally applied principle) | | [Ad Hominem](/codex/ad-hominem/) | "Christian leader X is a hypocrite, therefore Christianity is false" | Three sub-types (abusive / circumstantial / *tu quoque*); engage substance | | [Straw Man](/codex/straw-man/) | atheist caricature of Christian doctrine (e.g., "Christians believe a magic-Sky-Daddy") | Steel-man the actual position; cite primary doctrinal sources | | [Equivocation](/codex/equivocation/) | shifting between two senses of "faith" / "evidence" / "religion" / "god" | Lexical-disambiguation defeater pattern | | [Begging the Question](/codex/begging-the-question/) | "the Bible can't be evidence for itself" / "miracles can't happen because nature is uniform" | Premise / conclusion overlap test; methodological-vs-metaphysical-naturalism distinction | | [False Dilemma](/codex/false-dilemma/) | "either science OR faith / either reason OR religion" | The third (or fourth, fifth) option that fits the evidence | | [Argument from Ignorance](/codex/argument-from-ignorance/) | "you can't prove God exists" / "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" | IBE-vs-gap-reasoning distinction (see [God of the Gaps](/codex/god-of-the-gaps/)) | | [Special Pleading](/codex/special-pleading/) | "Christianity gets a free pass because it's special" | Universalizable principle test; exemption requires principled justification; aseity-based Kalam P1 exception + skeptical theism false-fallacy diagnostics | | [Appeal to Popularity](/codex/appeal-to-popularity/) (*ad populum*) | "most scientists are atheists, therefore atheism is true" | Truth ≠ majority opinion; appeal-to-experts is distinct (and conditional) | | [Appeal to Authority](/codex/appeal-to-authority/) (*ad verecundiam*) | citing scholar X without engaging the argument | Distinguishes legitimate testimony from fallacious appeal-to-authority-alone | | [Slippery Slope](/codex/slippery-slope/) | "if you accept Christianity, next you'll accept anything" | Distinguishes fallacious from genuine causal-chain arguments | | [Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc](/codex/post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc/) / [Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc](/codex/post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc/) | misuse of correlation in evidential apologetics | Distinguishes correlation from genuine causal evidence | | [Composition and Division](/codex/composition-and-division/) | "if every part is X, the whole is X" / reverse | Population-vs-individual claim taxonomy | | [Tu Quoque](/codex/tu-quoque/) | "but Christians do bad things too" | When valid (exposing inconsistency) vs fallacious (evading the substance) | ### Higher-order / rhetorical fallacies | Fallacy | Apologetic deployment | |---------|----------------------| | [Loaded Question](/codex/loaded-question/) (complex question) | "have you stopped beating your wife?" structure in atheist questions | | [Appeal to Consequences](/codex/appeal-to-consequences/) (*ad consequentiam*) | "if Christianity is false, life has no meaning, therefore..." (the move runs both ways) | | [Is-Ought Fallacy](/codex/is-ought-fallacy/) (Hume's guillotine) | naturalistic fallacy in moral arguments; foundational for moral-argument apologetics | | [Moralistic Fallacy](/codex/moralistic-fallacy/) | the reverse of is-ought; ought-to-is move | | [God of the Gaps](/codex/god-of-the-gaps/) | covered as concept + paired defeater syllogism | ### Cognitive biases (boundary cases between fallacies and biases) | Bias | Apologetic relevance | |------|---------------------| | [Confirmation Bias](/codex/confirmation-bias/) | "you only see the evidence that supports your faith" (cuts both ways); Wason 1960 2-4-6 task; bidirectional charge; Christianity's substantive falsifiers (1 Cor 15:14 + Messianic prophecies + Matthew 7:16) | | [Survivorship Bias](/codex/survivorship-bias/) | answered-prayer / miracle-collection criticism; Wald bomber-armor template; Lourdes Bureau as structural denominator-control; Hebrews 11 + lament-psalm tradition as anti-survivorship canonical preservation | | [Availability Heuristic](/codex/availability-heuristic/) | Tversky-Kahneman 1973 cognitive shortcut where retrievability is misread as frequency; New Atheist iconic-cases-stand-in-for-category pattern (Crusades / Galileo / Salem / Stalin); Christian deployments equally vulnerable; symmetric diagnosis with base-rate-engagement + missing-cases + cognitive-structure-naming as the three rebuttal patterns | ## Reading guide - **For deployment**, when you encounter a fallacy charge in conversation, navigate to the entry, read the "How to rebut it" section first, then the "False-fallacy examples" if the charge seems misapplied. - **For preparation**, when preparing for a debate, work through the entries that fit the topic. Most New Atheist-style debates rely on a small number (genetic / no-true-Scotsman / god-of-the-gaps / equivocation / ad hominem); pre-loading the rebuttal patterns is high-leverage. - **For taxonomy**, the catalog table above shows category, status, and load-bearing diagnostic; it's the fast index when you're searching for a specific fallacy. ## What this folder is NOT - **Not a replacement for substantive apologetic engagement.** Naming a fallacy is not winning an argument, it identifies a logical-structural problem that may or may not be present. Engage the substance. - **Not a license to charge fallacy promiscuously.** False-fallacy charges are themselves rhetorical fouls. Each entry's "When it's actually fallacious" + "False-fallacy examples" sections are equally important. - **Not a survey of every fallacy named in informal-logic literature.** Fallacy-list resources catalog 100+ entries; this folder focuses on the ~20-25 that recur in apologetic discourse, treated in depth. ## Christian scholarly resources - **Douglas Walton, *Informal Logic* 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2008)**, the standard academic taxonomy of informal fallacies - **Patrick Hurley, *A Concise Introduction to Logic* (Cengage, multiple eds.)**, the standard critical-thinking textbook used in undergraduate courses - **Irving Copi, Carl Cohen, & Kenneth McMahon, *Introduction to Logic* (Routledge, 14th ed.)**, alternate canonical textbook - **[Norman Geisler](/codex/norman-geisler/) & Ronald Brooks, *Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking* (Baker, 1990)**, explicitly Christian-apologetic logic primer - **[Edward Feser](/codex/edward-feser/), *Five Proofs of the Existence of God* (Ignatius, 2017)**, classical-theist arguments + treatment of common atheist fallacy-charges - **[Alvin Plantinga](/codex/alvin-plantinga/), *Warranted Christian Belief* (Oxford, 2000)**, the *de jure* objection's structure analyzed with attention to genetic-fallacy patterns - **[Antony Flew](/codex/antony-flew/), *Thinking about Thinking: Do I Sincerely Want to Be Right?* (Collins, 1975)**, origin of the "No True Scotsman" formulation - **[John Lennox](/codex/john-lennox/), *Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists Are Missing the Target* (Lion, 2011)**, popular-academic engagement with New Atheist informal-logic moves - **[William Lane Craig](/codex/william-lane-craig/), *Reasonable Faith* 3rd ed. (Crossway, 2008)**, engages many of these fallacy-charges in apologetic context ## See also - [Debate Logic Toolkit](/codex/debate-logic-toolkit/), the companion catalog of the valid reasoning moves (this page is the defect list; that one is the build kit) - _template, entry template for adding new fallacies to this folder - [Laws of Logic](/codex/laws-of-logic/), formal-logic foundation; sibling concept hub - [Modus Ponens](/codex/modus-ponens/) / *Modus Tollens* / [Modal Logic](/codex/modal-logic/), formal-inference rules - [Deductive Reasoning](/codex/deductive-reasoning/) / [Inductive Reasoning](/codex/inductive-reasoning/) / [Abductive Reasoning](/codex/abductive-reasoning/), sibling reasoning-modes hubs - [Apologetics](/codex/apologetics/), apologetic-method master - [Atheism](/codex/atheism/), master hub on the worldview most often deploying these fallacy charges - [New Atheism](/codex/new-atheism/), entity hub on the Dawkins-Harris-Hitchens-Dennett movement - Hubs Roadmap
## Common questions this page answers **Q: What is a logical fallacy?** A logical fallacy is a bad pattern of reasoning that often sounds convincing. Formal fallacies break the rules of deductive logic; informal fallacies involve content, context, or rhetorical errors. Examples include [ad hominem](/codex/ad-hominem/), [straw man](/codex/straw-man/), [begging the question](/codex/begging-the-question/), [false dilemma](/codex/false-dilemma/), [equivocation](/codex/equivocation/), and many more. The Fallacies folder gives diagnostic, rebuttal, and false-fallacy treatment per entry. **Q: What is a "false fallacy" charge?** It is when someone yells "that's a fallacy" but the charge does not actually fit. Popular fallacy lists train casual readers to spot the patterns by name and misapply them as conversation-stoppers. Every entry in this folder includes a *false-fallacy examples* section showing the diagnostic test that separates real cases from misapplied charges. Both directions matter: spotting actual fallacies, and refusing fake ones. **Q: Which fallacies come up most in atheism debates?** The most frequent are [Genetic Fallacy](/codex/genetic-fallacy/) ("you only believe because you were raised that way"), [Ad Hominem](/codex/ad-hominem/) ("Christian leaders are hypocrites"), [Straw Man](/codex/straw-man/) (misrepresenting Christian doctrine), [Equivocation](/codex/equivocation/) (using "faith" in two senses), [Appeal to Authority](/codex/appeal-to-authority/) (citing scientists out of domain), [Appeal to Popularity](/codex/appeal-to-popularity/) (most scientists are atheists), [No True Scotsman Fallacy](/codex/no-true-scotsman-fallacy/) (charging that any failure is "not a real Christian"), [Argument from Ignorance](/codex/argument-from-ignorance/) ("you can't prove God exists"), and [God of the Gaps](/codex/god-of-the-gaps/). **Q: How do you respond when someone accuses you of a fallacy?** Three options. First, check whether the charge actually fits, often it does not. Second, if it does, adjust the argument. Third, see whether the principle the charger is using applies symmetrically to their own position. Many fallacy charges, applied consistently, defeat the charger's worldview as well as yours. The selective-application asymmetry is itself the equivocation. **Q: Do Christians commit fallacies too?** Yes, regularly. The Fallacies folder treats both directions on every entry. Christians can commit appeal to authority ("Aquinas says"), appeal to consequences ("without God life would be meaningless, so God exists"), [God of the Gaps](/codex/god-of-the-gaps/) ("science can't explain consciousness, therefore God"), and [circular reasoning](/codex/begging-the-question/) ("the Bible is true because the Bible says so"). The discipline applies symmetrically.