Fallacies

1. Look at all the churches in this country! There must be hundreds of millions of people just in the U.S. alone who believe God exists. That many millions of people just can't be wrong.

a. BANDWAGON

b. How popular a belief is doesn't tell you how true it is. Popularity and truth are different things. (This is sometimes called the Common Consent [or Common Belief]) argument for the existence of God.)

2. Abraham Lincoln was one of the best presidents ever, and he believed in God. That's why I say God exists.

a. (INVALID) APPEAL TO AUTHORITY

b. Lincoln's greatness involved politics, not philosophy or theology. He's not an authority on those issues.

3. Russian dictator Joseph Stalin killed millions of his own citizens, and he was an atheist. Therefore, atheism is wrong; God exists.

a. AD HOMINEM

b. The fact that Stalin was one of the most evil people ever doesn't mean he was wrong about believing there are no gods. (Hitler was just as evil yet he believed in God.)

Sometimes some students think this is cherry picking, since it's looking at one evil atheist when there are loads of decent atheists. But it's actually not cherry picking because the conclusion isn't that atheism is evil or that it leads to murder. Instead, the conclusion is that the argument (for atheism) is wrong, and the reason it's wrong is because of a negative trait of (one of) its advocates. A negative trait of the person is used to dismiss the idea.

4. A few decades ago, the Supreme Court ruled that public schools couldn't make students pray. Since then, there has been a tremendous an increase in violence and drug use among children. Gee, I wonder why?

a. FALSE CAUSE

b. Just because the Supreme Court decision happened first, doesn't mean it caused the increased violence and drug use. There are lots of other possible causes, such as increased poverty, fewer jobs (and fewer good jobs), and the glorification of violence and drug use in music, movies, and video games.

5. The doctors can't explain why she doesn't have cancer any more. It must have been God who did it. It's a miracle! He must have something planned for her.

a. APPEAL TO IGNORANCE

b. The lack of a medical explanation doesn't make your religious explanation correct. If someone else is wrong, that doesn't make you right. You need to validate your own beliefs.

This might seem like a false alternative fallacy, and in a sense it is. All appeals to ignorance are based on a false alternative -- namely, the false alternative of view A or view B. But the phrase "no one really knows" makes this about more than just the limiting of alternatives. It makes it about knowledge -- or, more accurately, the lack of knowledge. That's what makes it an appeal to ignorance.

6. If God exists, you will go to hell if you don't believe in him. So you should believe God exists.

a. APPEAL TO EMOTION (FEAR)

b. This argument isn't seeking to convince you with evidence. It's seeking to scare you, to manipulate you based on your fear of hell fire and eternal suffering.

7. Michael Jordan is God, and Michael Jordan exists, so that means God exists.

a. EQUIVOCATION

b. When someone says "(Someone) is God", they mean the person is or seems superhuman at what they do. It doesn't literally mean they are the god of Christianity (and Islam and Judaism).

8. Christians believe God exists. I am a Christian. Therefore, God exists.

a. WISHFUL THINKING

b. At heart, all this argument actually says is "I believe, so it's true." It's just dressed up to look better. Yet believing something doesn't actually make it true.

Often some students think this is a false alternative, but it's not. Though there certainly are other religions, and most of them don't hold that God exists, there is nonetheless no alternative being offered in the argument itself.