1. Ad Populum. The appeal to popularity occurs in the first sentence of the post, "8 out of 10 atheists will convert." Oh well, if so many others are doing it, it must be true! By the way, there is a funny British panel show called "8 Out of 10 Cats". You all should look it up on YouTube.
2. Anecdotal evidence. For some reason it seems that anecdotal stories are quite compelling among Christians. Of course, the story proves absolutely nothing. Anyone can tell a story. "A priest and an atheist were sitting in a restaurant . . . when a meteor smashed into the building killing the priest but not the atheist. So, clearly, it's better to be an atheist!" Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
3. Ad Hominem. "The atheist looks angrily at the priest and says smugly, "I can't believe how dumb you are!" Of course, if you want to slander one side the favored approach is to paint them as hostile, and rude, and arrogant. Why can't the atheist have not looked angrily and not smugly say "so, why don't you accept the evidence for evolution?" Oh, that would be more reasonable and would not reinforce the stereotype religious people enjoy believing about atheists.
4. Strawman. The story suggests that atheists "believe" in evolution, as if it were a religion requiring faith. The story also sets up a misrepresentation of the evidence for evolution just so the story teller can easily win. For some reason creationists always seem to fail when they try to argue against the actual position of evolution by natural selection. Perhaps because dinosaur fossils are not the totality of the evidence, by a long shot.
5. Extended Analogy. Chicken Nuggets are not very much like either rocks or dinosaur fossils. For that matter, dinosaur fossils are not mere rocks. Rocks are molten minerals that have cooled and thus solidified. While fossils are the result of a long process of minerals deposits that occupy cells and replace each, in organic matter. In any event, there is much more science involved in determining if something is a fossil than merely looking at it and saying "gee this looks vaguely like another thing, so it must be it." But, the analogy suggests that dinosaur fossils are rocks that merely look like parts of an animal.
6. Tu Quoque (Latin for "you too"). This is the fallacy of excusing one's own errors by invoking the errors of one's opponent. You've heard the saying "two wrongs don't make a right"? The story has the priest saying "Now, you atheists make fun of us Christians when we see Jesus in our pancakes . . ." In no way does this attempt to excuse one side's errors by pointing to the other sides errors make any sense, logically speaking. It simply is irrelevant, and it's not any kind of evidence or refutation.
7. Appeal to Emotion. Aside from the painting of the opposition as hostile, mean, rude, and arrogant, which is meant to stir dislike in the reader, there is the attempt at the tear-jerker redemption story. All of a sudden the big bad meany realizes he was bad, and begs forgiveness. And, of course, the "good guy" then shows compassion and forgiveness and kindness, so we all know who won, right?
Copyright © 2014, Joshua Michail
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