I'm a PhD biblical scholar, and a pastor who has found freedom from christianity. I have never felt such freedom, but it came at a considerable social and economic cost for me.
Bible scholars are the most reliable when it comes to the Bible. Do you have any internet posts (videos or writings)? Who are other atheist Bible scholars please? I know Bart D. Ehrman, Francesca Stavrakopoulou & Richard Elliott Friedman.
“I left when my prayers were meaningless literary productions, when hymns only evoked a comfortable nostalgia, when my sermons could not say what I felt, when the Bible became literature, when missions became vacations for the favored few, when Jesus became a man, and finally when God died on my lips.” - anon
Kudos to these people, It's heartwarming to see and hear sanity being implemented. The politics in the U.S.A. still losing the plot, not unlike us here in the uk and many other places motivated by the various religions around the world. Peace.
I've considered myself an atheist for as long as I can remember. Try as I might, I've never believed in God, or even in Jesus Christ. To me the Bible has always been a book of fiction, with many stories written in the "Bible" that are works of fiction. I've never taken anything these "scriptures" say seriously.
Kudos to all former preachers, nuns etc. - admitting that you were wrong all your life? Hard! Walking away from a comfy gig (seriously, preaching is probably not no work, but it certainly beats working in say ship building or garbage collection!)? Harder! So again: Kudos to all those who do this!
Thanks Dan, Annie, and all FFRF staff. I support your efforts with my monthly contribution and encourage others to do so as well. I was born and raised in Texas and vacillate between WTF to outraged with conservative legislators that want to restrict rights and use the evil bible as their moral guide. Support candidates that are moderate and will legislate without religious bias. VOTE, take several to vote, and send donations.
Dan Barker, I've admired you for a long time. Some of 'married bachelor' arguments for the impossibility of the existence of the god of the bible are amazing, and the piano! Oh my stars! But this interview is so needed now, so people know, they are not alone. We need every voice, method and style of fighting theocracy if our species is to survive. People think, oh religion not a danger anymore, except for a few Christian wackos and a few, but more, Islamic wackos. But, we now have much more advanced weaponry, in the hands of messianic maniacs, and that makes the danger greater! I wish you all the best, again you have my admiration, I wish I could help, financially and physically. Love and Peace
Laura Jarrell personally l am so grateful l am alive at a time when we have great free minds like Dan. I also love his married bachelor arguement. I think you can donate to his group
I live just down the street from Mr Abbott who as Matt Dillahunty likes to quip is only allowed to live here in Austin, a very blue city surrounded by a sea of red, as a courtesy...Good on you FFRF for notching a victory against him & hope it sends a message to all the faith leaders among us.
John is a great man, full of wisdom and insight. The Bible is the handbook for conquerors. The manual for empires. When you look at history, it has changed hands like a baton, from empire to empire. Each empire, desemating cultures/ people groups in its wake. Its purpose to absolve the conscience of those in power, as they commit all sorts of crimes.
Studying the Bible in detail would cause many people to question their faith. How can one justify their faith after reading studying the Bible and believe their god is good and just.
Thanks to FFRF we have an inside take on what is really happening on the religion front despite all the whoop an' holler of believers and their leaders.
Imagine saying mass for a living, daily going through the motions of magical cannibalism and imaginary blood drinking. Aside from the wine there are few benefits to retain working charlatans. I would like to refute those who site the bible in any argument, even in rebuttal. No supernatural myths are needed to identify and fight against cruelty and inhumane treatment.
All can say is get out this November and vote, if you’ve never voted vote Do research on the candidates in your district Try to find the ones not taking corporate contributions to their campaign and vote for them. We can get these crazy politicians out of office.
I am very glad that the pre her did the write thing converting from the magic world to the real world this is what the civilization need to do and I'm glad that Barker and his wife and friends are doing a beautiful job that I follow and learn thank you for this program guys
I feel so bad for the Atheist Preacher's that are STILL behind the pulpit and can't escape...they are stuck, they're imprisoned, and held captive and it must be so hard for them when they DESPERATELY want to escape to FREEDOM! And imagine that...We can't even pray for them!
This is a great addition to your videos. I love that about how there are probably the same percentage of good people who are believers as in the general population. No more. No less. And I think about the Mike Pences and the Jeff Sessions of the world and how responsible they are for bringing down the average.
I joined the Clergy Project a couple of years ago now. I spent 25 years in ministry, mostly as a parish pastor. I have spent the last 18 months TRYING TO CONNECT with other members of the clergy project to no avail! I have welcomed new members, commented on pages, invited people to respond, looked for people who were from my area or my denomination, etc. I have been told by members they were not interesting in talking about it, were too far away from where I live, or simply told they do not share about their exit. Basically, they give all the excuses that people in the churches I was born into, belonged to and served in for 75 years to show they do not give a shit about others. I have come to the point that I quit checking in for messages or comments, now every three or four months. I have now come to space those inquiries to every six months and will probably delete the Clergy Project as useless in the future.
Once a religious leader decides enough is enough & makes the decision to walk away from perhaps the only vocation they have ever known in most cases, what is their fall back plan? Given the fact most have become dependent on tax free salaries, free housing w/utilities, ect., it must come as a shock when they discover how hard it is to make ends meet in the secular world. Seems a handful are capitalizing on their deconversions by writing books, but I would guess book sales are fairly flat in our current digital age. Perhaps a deconversion home could be built on some remote island somewhere funded by the project allowing all these folks to live out their days doing all the things they railed against from the pulpit, sort of a Garden of Hedon...
Them citing the verse of "it's biblical to follow the law!" is pretty pitiful. You could make the law into whatever evil tyranny you want and you could still cite that forever. It is _also_ just as biblical to reject the law when they're being immoral, like the king ordering Rashack, Meshack, and Abendigo to worship him. But in general I wouldn't cite the book that still thinks slavery is A OK and that marriage is a fitting punishment for rapists as a good source on morality.
"Love does no harm to a neighbour." That is just self-refuting. Toxic love ☣❤ is not that rare. And there is nothing in an objective definition of love that would support that idea. Though Paul was probably talking about harm you can be legally responsible for, knowing *him* .
Logical Fallacies 1. Ad Hominem Fallacy When people think of “arguments,” often their first thought is of shouting matches riddled with personal attacks. Ironically, personal attacks run contrary to rational arguments. In logic and rhetoric, personal attacks are called ad hominems. Ad hominem is Latin for “against the man.” Instead of advancing good sound reasoning, ad hominems replace logical argumentation with attack-language unrelated to the truth of the matter. 2. Straw Man It’s much easier to defeat your opponent’s argument when it’s made of straw. The Strawman fallacy is aptly named after a harmless, lifeless, scarecrow. In the straw man fallacy, someone attacks a position the opponent doesn’t really hold. Instead of contending with the actual argument, he or she instead attacks the equivalent of a lifeless bundle of straw, an easily defeated effigy, which the opponent never intended upon defending anyway. 3. Appeal to Ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam) Any time ignorance is used as a major premise in support of an argument, it’s liable to be a fallacious appeal to ignorance. Naturally, we are all ignorant of many things, but it is cheap and manipulative to allow this unfortunate aspect of the human condition to do most of our heavy lifting in an argument. 4. False Dilemma/False Dichotomy This fallacy has a few other names: “black-and-white fallacy,” “either-or fallacy,” “false dichotomy,” and “bifurcation fallacy.” This line of reasoning fails by limiting the options to two when there are in fact more options to choose from. Sometimes the choices are between one thing, the other thing, or both things together (they don’t exclude each other). Sometimes there are a whole range of options, three, four, five, or a hundred and forty-five. However it may happen, the false dichotomy fallacy errs by oversimplifying the range of options. 5. Slippery Slope You may have used this fallacy on your parents as a teenager: “But, you have to let me go to the party! If I don’t go to the party, I’ll be a loser with no friends. Next thing you know I’ll end up alone and jobless living in your basement when I’m 30!” The slippery slope fallacy works by moving from a seemingly benign premise or starting point and working through a number of small steps to an improbable extreme. 6. Circular Argument (petitio principii) When a person’s argument is just repeating what they already assumed beforehand, it’s not arriving at any new conclusion. We call this a circular argument or circular reasoning. If someone says, “the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true”-that’s a circular argument. One is assuming that the Bible only speaks truth, and so they trust it to truthfully report that it speaks the truth. Another example of circular reasoning is, “According to my brain, my brain is reliable.” Well, yes, of course we would think our brains are in fact reliable if our brains are the one’s telling us that our brains are reliable. 7. Hasty Generalization Hasty generalizations are general statements without sufficient evidence to support them. They are general claims too hastily made, hence they commit some sort of illicit assumption, stereotyping, unwarranted conclusion, overstatement, or exaggeration. 8. Red Herring (ignoratio elenchi) A “red herring” is a distraction from the argument typically with some sentiment that seems to be relevant but isn’t really on-topic. Typically, the distraction sounds relevant but isn’t quite on-topic. This tactic is common when someone doesn’t like the current topic and wants to detour into something else instead, something easier or safer to address. Red herrings are typically related to the issue in question but aren’t quite relevant enough to be helpful. Instead of clarifying and focusing they confuse and distract. 9. Tu Quoque Fallacy The “tu quoque,” Latin for “you too,” is also called the “appeal to hypocrisy” because it distracts from the argument by pointing out hypocrisy in the opponent. This tactic doesn’t solve the problem, or prove one’s point, because even hypocrites can tell the truth. Focusing on the other person’s hypocrisy is a diversionary tactic. In this way, the tu quoque typically deflects criticism away from one’s self by accusing the other person of the same problem or something comparable. If Jack says, “Maybe I committed a little adultery, but so did you Jason!” Jack is trying to diminish his responsibility or defend his actions by distributing blame to other people. But no one else’s guilt excuses his own guilt. No matter who else is guilty, Jack is still an adulterer. 10. Causal Fallacy The Causal Fallacy is any logical breakdown when identifying a cause. You can think of the Causal Fallacy as a parent category for several different fallacies about unproven causes. One causal fallacy is the False Cause or non causa pro causa (“not the-cause for a cause”) fallacy, which is when you conclude about a cause without enough evidence to do so. Consider, for example, “Since your parents named you ‘Harvest,’ they must be farmers.” It’s possible that the parents are farmers, but that name alone is not enough evidence to draw that conclusion. That name doesn’t tell us much of anything about the parents. This claim commits the False Cause Fallacy. 11. Fallacy of Sunk Costs Sometimes we invest ourselves so thoroughly in a project that we’re reluctant to ever abandon it, even when it turns out to be fruitless and futile. It’s natural, and usually not a fallacy to want to carry on with something we find important, not least because of all the resources we’ve put into it. However, this kind of thinking becomes a fallacy when we start to think that we should continue with a task or project because of all that we’ve put into it, without considering the future costs we’re likely to incur by doing so. There may be a sense of accomplishment when finishing, and the project might have other values, but it’s not enough to justify the cost invested in it. 12. Appeal to Authority (argumentum ad verecundiam) This fallacy happens when we misuse an authority. This misuse of authority can occur in a number of ways. We can cite only authorities-steering conveniently away from other testable and concrete evidence as if expert opinion is always correct. Or we can cite irrelevant authorities, poor authorities, or false authorities. 13. Equivocation (ambiguity) Equivocation happens when a word, phrase, or sentence is used deliberately to confuse, deceive, or mislead by sounding like it’s saying one thing but actually saying something else. Equivocation comes from the roots “equal” and “voice” and refers to two-voices; a single word can “say” two different things. Another word for this is ambiguity. 14. Appeal to Pity (argumentum ad misericordiam) Argumentum ad misericordiam is Latin for “argument to compassion”. Like the ad hominem fallacy above, it is a fallacy of relevance. Personal attacks, and emotional appeals, aren’t strictly relevant to whether something is true or false. In this case, the fallacy appeals to the compassion and emotional sensitivity of others when these factors are not strictly relevant to the argument. Appeals to pity often appear as emotional manipulation. 15. Bandwagon Fallacy The bandwagon fallacy assumes something is true (or right, or good) because other people agree with it. A couple different fallacies can be included under this label, since they are often indistinguishable in practice. The ad populum fallacy (Lat., “to the populous/popularity”) is when something is accepted because it’s popular. The concensus gentium (Lat., “consensus of the people”) is when something is accepted because the relevant authorities or people all agree on it. And the status appeal fallacy is when something is considered true, right, or good because it has the reputation of lending status, making you look “popular,” “important,” or “successful.”
I want and strive to obey secular laws. The constitution's a good book, it iz the literal 'off switch for religion as a presidential policy . Why aren't we running towards that. Preaching that in all the free schools and colleges (hopefully soon). "No longer Under God" In The Pledge lol..
Maybe there should be some methods put together to help even lay people deconstruct. It is very difficult because it is everywhere and people treat non believers like they are evil and hell on Earth. Have any of you come up with ways to "ward off" religious people? lol
I'm a PhD biblical scholar, and a pastor who has found freedom from christianity. I have never felt such freedom, but it came at a considerable social and economic cost for me.
Bible scholars are the most reliable when it comes to the Bible. Do you have any internet posts (videos or writings)? Who are other atheist Bible scholars please? I know Bart D. Ehrman, Francesca Stavrakopoulou & Richard Elliott Friedman.
“I left when my prayers were meaningless literary productions, when hymns only evoked a comfortable nostalgia, when my sermons could not say what I felt, when the Bible became literature, when missions became vacations for the favored few, when Jesus became a man, and finally when God died on my lips.”
- anon
I'm not even finished watching your show yet and I must really say, this time, you hit the jackpot. Ex-preachers.... LOL I just love them.
Kudos to these people, It's heartwarming to see and hear sanity being implemented.
The politics in the U.S.A. still losing the plot, not unlike us here in the uk and many other places motivated by the various religions around the world.
Peace.
Greatest work & job on earth... setting freedoms to all. Thank You All.
Excellent points Dan.
I've considered myself an atheist for as long as I can remember. Try as I might, I've never believed in God, or even in Jesus Christ. To me the Bible has always been a book of fiction, with many stories written in the "Bible" that are works of fiction. I've never taken anything these "scriptures" say seriously.
Kudos to all former preachers, nuns etc. - admitting that you were wrong all your life? Hard! Walking away from a comfy gig (seriously, preaching is probably not no work, but it certainly beats working in say ship building or garbage collection!)? Harder! So again: Kudos to all those who do this!
Thanks Dan, Annie, and all FFRF staff. I support your efforts with my monthly contribution and encourage others to do so as well. I was born and raised in Texas and vacillate between WTF to outraged with conservative legislators that want to restrict rights and use the evil bible as their moral guide. Support candidates that are moderate and will legislate without religious bias. VOTE, take several to vote, and send donations.
Dan Barker, I've admired you for a long time. Some of 'married bachelor' arguments for the impossibility of the existence of the god of the bible are amazing, and the piano! Oh my stars! But this interview is so needed now, so people know, they are not alone. We need every voice, method and style of fighting theocracy if our species is to survive. People think, oh religion not a danger anymore, except for a few Christian wackos and a few, but more, Islamic wackos. But, we now have much more advanced weaponry, in the hands of messianic maniacs, and that makes the danger greater! I wish you all the best, again you have my admiration, I wish I could help, financially and physically. Love and Peace
Laura Jarrell personally l am so grateful l am alive at a time when we have great free minds like Dan. I also love his married bachelor arguement. I think you can donate to his group
Laura, you're beautiful...loved what you said about Dan !
I live just down the street from Mr Abbott who as Matt Dillahunty likes to quip is only allowed to live here in Austin, a very blue city surrounded by a sea of red, as a courtesy...Good on you FFRF for notching a victory against him & hope it sends a message to all the faith leaders among us.
Another great video and what amazing project. Thanks guys!
John is a great man, full of wisdom and insight. The Bible is the handbook for conquerors. The manual for empires. When you look at history, it has changed hands like a baton, from empire to empire. Each empire, desemating cultures/ people groups in its wake. Its purpose to absolve the conscience of those in power, as they commit all sorts of crimes.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you for sharing that book list, some were already on my wish list and you gave me much more. Again...Thanks!
Studying the Bible in detail would cause many people to question their faith. How can one justify their faith after reading studying the Bible and believe their god is good and just.
Exactly. He seems more like Satan to me
Wish that connection was better with Lon. He's a good guy with a lot of insight.
Dan, ty for your example and your commitment to the truth.
I like the opening tune very much, as well as your FFRF channel here on TH-cam. Thanks for sharing!
I love that song because it sounds like a cheesy Christian chorus.
Two Methodist churches closed their doors in my neighborhood. Can I get a Dar-win.
Congratulations on the lawsuit win!! A real win for rule of law.
Thanks to FFRF we have an inside take on what is really happening on the religion front despite all the whoop an' holler of believers and their leaders.
Imagine saying mass for a living, daily going through the motions of magical cannibalism and imaginary blood drinking. Aside from the wine there are few benefits to retain working charlatans.
I would like to refute those who site the bible in any argument, even in rebuttal.
No supernatural myths are needed to identify and fight against cruelty and inhumane treatment.
Your programs are so interesting
Congratulations!
All can say is get out this November and vote, if you’ve never voted vote
Do research on the candidates in your district
Try to find the ones not taking corporate contributions to their campaign and vote for them. We can get these crazy politicians out of office.
I am very glad that the pre her did the write thing converting from the magic world to the real world this is what the civilization need to do and I'm glad that Barker and his wife and friends are doing a beautiful job that I follow and learn thank you for this program guys
This reminds me of the book Behind the Pulpit
I feel so bad for the Atheist Preacher's that are STILL behind the pulpit and can't escape...they are
stuck, they're imprisoned, and held captive and it must be so hard for them when they DESPERATELY
want to escape to FREEDOM!
And imagine that...We can't even pray for them!
This is a great addition to your videos. I love that about how there are probably the same percentage of good people who are believers as in the general population. No more. No less. And I think about the Mike Pences and the Jeff Sessions of the world and how responsible they are for bringing down the average.
Dan's book "godless" BLEW MY MIND AND SET ME FREE!!!!
I have to give a plug...Buy Dan's book!
Thanks so much Dan!
Non believers, and religions other than Christians have rights.
Wow, this was interesting.
I joined the Clergy Project a couple of years ago now. I spent 25 years in ministry, mostly as a parish pastor. I have spent the last 18 months TRYING TO CONNECT with other members of the clergy project to no avail! I have welcomed new members, commented on pages, invited people to respond, looked for people who were from my area or my denomination, etc. I have been told by members they were not interesting in talking about it, were too far away from where I live, or simply told they do not share about their exit. Basically, they give all the excuses that people in the churches I was born into, belonged to and served in for 75 years to show they do not give a shit about others. I have come to the point that I quit checking in for messages or comments, now every three or four months. I have now come to space those inquiries to every six months and will probably delete the Clergy Project as useless in the future.
Religion has been Imprisoning children in the name love, Why not give sessions a swing.
Once a religious leader decides enough is enough & makes the decision to walk away from perhaps the only vocation they have ever known in most cases, what is their fall back plan? Given the fact most have become dependent on tax free salaries, free housing w/utilities, ect., it must come as a shock when they discover how hard it is to make ends meet in the secular world. Seems a handful are capitalizing on their deconversions by writing books, but I would guess book sales are fairly flat in our current digital age. Perhaps a deconversion home could be built on some remote island somewhere funded by the project allowing all these folks to live out their days doing all the things they railed against from the pulpit, sort of a Garden of Hedon...
I need to copy that statement 🤔😊🤣
@6:07 ... HOLY SHIT!!! That bible doesn't mince words, does it?
LOL!!!
Them citing the verse of "it's biblical to follow the law!" is pretty pitiful. You could make the law into whatever evil tyranny you want and you could still cite that forever.
It is _also_ just as biblical to reject the law when they're being immoral, like the king ordering Rashack, Meshack, and Abendigo to worship him.
But in general I wouldn't cite the book that still thinks slavery is A OK and that marriage is a fitting punishment for rapists as a good source on morality.
Such is the power of dogma and indoctrination.
I'm curious how many of the members of the clergy project have reversed course and became believers again and if it was the same religion.
the Bible says bad laws are good, cause God said so ... makes sense, LOL!!! this is the harm that religion does
Religion is a synonym for ignorance and is the literal reading of mythology.
"Love does no harm to a neighbour." That is just self-refuting.
Toxic love ☣❤ is not that rare. And there is nothing in an objective definition of love that would support that idea.
Though Paul was probably talking about harm you can be legally responsible for, knowing *him* .
Logical Fallacies
1. Ad Hominem Fallacy
When people think of “arguments,” often their first thought is of shouting matches riddled with
personal attacks. Ironically, personal attacks run contrary to rational arguments. In logic and
rhetoric, personal attacks are called ad hominems. Ad hominem is Latin for “against the man.”
Instead of advancing good sound reasoning, ad hominems replace logical argumentation with
attack-language unrelated to the truth of the matter.
2. Straw Man
It’s much easier to defeat your opponent’s argument when it’s made of straw. The Strawman
fallacy is aptly named after a harmless, lifeless, scarecrow. In the straw man fallacy, someone
attacks a position the opponent doesn’t really hold. Instead of contending with the actual
argument, he or she instead attacks the equivalent of a lifeless bundle of straw, an easily
defeated effigy, which the opponent never intended upon defending anyway.
3. Appeal to Ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam)
Any time ignorance is used as a major premise in support of an argument, it’s liable to be a
fallacious appeal to ignorance. Naturally, we are all ignorant of many things, but it is cheap
and manipulative to allow this unfortunate aspect of the human condition to do most of our
heavy lifting in an argument.
4. False Dilemma/False Dichotomy
This fallacy has a few other names: “black-and-white fallacy,” “either-or fallacy,” “false
dichotomy,” and “bifurcation fallacy.” This line of reasoning fails by limiting the options to
two when there are in fact more options to choose from. Sometimes the choices are between one
thing, the other thing, or both things together (they don’t exclude each other). Sometimes
there are a whole range of options, three, four, five, or a hundred and forty-five. However it
may happen, the false dichotomy fallacy errs by oversimplifying the range of options.
5. Slippery Slope
You may have used this fallacy on your parents as a teenager: “But, you have to let me go to
the party! If I don’t go to the party, I’ll be a loser with no friends. Next thing you know
I’ll end up alone and jobless living in your basement when I’m 30!” The slippery slope fallacy
works by moving from a seemingly benign premise or starting point and working through a number
of small steps to an improbable extreme.
6. Circular Argument (petitio principii)
When a person’s argument is just repeating what they already assumed beforehand, it’s not
arriving at any new conclusion. We call this a circular argument or circular reasoning. If
someone says, “the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true”-that’s a circular argument.
One is assuming that the Bible only speaks truth, and so they trust it to truthfully report
that it speaks the truth. Another example of circular reasoning is, “According to my brain, my
brain is reliable.” Well, yes, of course we would think our brains are in fact reliable if our
brains are the one’s telling us that our brains are reliable.
7. Hasty Generalization
Hasty generalizations are general statements without sufficient evidence to support them. They
are general claims too hastily made, hence they commit some sort of illicit assumption,
stereotyping, unwarranted conclusion, overstatement, or exaggeration.
8. Red Herring (ignoratio elenchi)
A “red herring” is a distraction from the argument typically with some sentiment that seems to
be relevant but isn’t really on-topic. Typically, the distraction sounds relevant but isn’t
quite on-topic. This tactic is common when someone doesn’t like the current topic and wants to
detour into something else instead, something easier or safer to address. Red herrings are
typically related to the issue in question but aren’t quite relevant enough to be helpful.
Instead of clarifying and focusing they confuse and distract.
9. Tu Quoque Fallacy
The “tu quoque,” Latin for “you too,” is also called the “appeal to hypocrisy” because it
distracts from the argument by pointing out hypocrisy in the opponent. This tactic doesn’t
solve the problem, or prove one’s point, because even hypocrites can tell the truth. Focusing
on the other person’s hypocrisy is a diversionary tactic. In this way, the tu quoque typically
deflects criticism away from one’s self by accusing the other person of the same problem or
something comparable. If Jack says, “Maybe I committed a little adultery, but so did you
Jason!” Jack is trying to diminish his responsibility or defend his actions by distributing
blame to other people. But no one else’s guilt excuses his own guilt. No matter who else is
guilty, Jack is still an adulterer.
10. Causal Fallacy
The Causal Fallacy is any logical breakdown when identifying a cause. You can think of the
Causal Fallacy as a parent category for several different fallacies about unproven causes.
One causal fallacy is the False Cause or non causa pro causa (“not the-cause for a cause”)
fallacy, which is when you conclude about a cause without enough evidence to do so. Consider,
for example, “Since your parents named you ‘Harvest,’ they must be farmers.” It’s possible that
the parents are farmers, but that name alone is not enough evidence to draw that conclusion.
That name doesn’t tell us much of anything about the parents. This claim commits the False
Cause Fallacy.
11. Fallacy of Sunk Costs
Sometimes we invest ourselves so thoroughly in a project that we’re reluctant to ever abandon
it, even when it turns out to be fruitless and futile. It’s natural, and usually not a fallacy
to want to carry on with something we find important, not least because of all the resources
we’ve put into it. However, this kind of thinking becomes a fallacy when we start to think that
we should continue with a task or project because of all that we’ve put into it, without
considering the future costs we’re likely to incur by doing so. There may be a sense of
accomplishment when finishing, and the project might have other values, but it’s not enough to
justify the cost invested in it.
12. Appeal to Authority (argumentum ad verecundiam)
This fallacy happens when we misuse an authority. This misuse of authority can occur in a
number of ways. We can cite only authorities-steering conveniently away from other testable and
concrete evidence as if expert opinion is always correct. Or we can cite irrelevant
authorities, poor authorities, or false authorities.
13. Equivocation (ambiguity)
Equivocation happens when a word, phrase, or sentence is used deliberately to confuse, deceive,
or mislead by sounding like it’s saying one thing but actually saying something else.
Equivocation comes from the roots “equal” and “voice” and refers to two-voices; a single word
can “say” two different things. Another word for this is ambiguity.
14. Appeal to Pity (argumentum ad misericordiam)
Argumentum ad misericordiam is Latin for “argument to compassion”. Like the ad hominem fallacy
above, it is a fallacy of relevance. Personal attacks, and emotional appeals, aren’t strictly
relevant to whether something is true or false. In this case, the fallacy appeals to the
compassion and emotional sensitivity of others when these factors are not strictly relevant to
the argument. Appeals to pity often appear as emotional manipulation.
15. Bandwagon Fallacy
The bandwagon fallacy assumes something is true (or right, or good) because other people agree
with it. A couple different fallacies can be included under this label, since they are often
indistinguishable in practice. The ad populum fallacy (Lat., “to the populous/popularity”) is
when something is accepted because it’s popular. The concensus gentium (Lat., “consensus of the
people”) is when something is accepted because the relevant authorities or people all agree on
it. And the status appeal fallacy is when something is considered true, right, or good because
it has the reputation of lending status, making you look “popular,” “important,” or
“successful.”
As they get older, maybe some preachers can't fit in the skinny jeans anymore.
I want and strive to obey secular laws. The constitution's a good book, it iz the literal 'off switch for religion as a presidential policy . Why aren't we running towards that. Preaching that in all the free schools and colleges (hopefully soon). "No longer Under God" In The Pledge lol..
Maybe there should be some methods put together to help even lay people deconstruct. It is very difficult because it is everywhere and people treat non believers like they are evil and hell on Earth. Have any of you come up with ways to "ward off" religious people? lol
The question should be, _"Why aren't they all?"_
The answer is probably *money.*
The
Make this video under 5 minutes and you'll increase your views by like 30%