The Atheist Snake Oil of Fallacies

Many Atheists will say "That is a Fallacy" as if it is a rebuttal to something a Religious Person has said, and not only do they use Fallacies wrong many times, when they do use them right they don't realize that pointing out that something is a Fallacy doesn't argue it, you still have to explain why it is wrong, not just that it is a Fallacy. (I am Hindu by the way)

Here is the Fallacy Fallacy, any Atheists reading this are probably going to go in to denial and say that this isn't a thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

The way they use Fallacies wrong is, for example, if someone says "Love exists" and "Oxytocin and Theobromine are the chemicals that are released when someone feels love, but love can not be seen on an ECG or X-Ray"
They will say:
"That is the God of the gaps Fallacy"

But that is not a God of the gaps Fallacy, a real God of the gaps Fallacy is "We don't know what created the Universe, God must have done it". That is God of the gaps. But again, just to call it a Fallacy does not actually show that it is false, it just shows that it is a Fallacy.

For example, there is a Fallacy called the No True Scotsman Fallacy, and it comes up for example when someone says "No True Christian would reject Jesus as the savior" and while that does fit the No True Scotsman Fallacy, it is true. You can't be a Christian unless you accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. That is what makes a Christian a Christian.

Anyone who is an Atheist because they learned about Fallacies, has been sold Snake Oil.

Just like a Syllogism can be wrong. This is used all the time in court rooms and is accepted unless it is argued against, but here is how it goes.

All cats have tails
Fluffy has a tail
Fluffy must be a cat

What if Fluffy is a dog? The Syllogism is false.

Axioms and Maxims are what people who want to debate Religion should be learning about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_(philosophy)

All this Fallacy stuff going around the Atheist community is worthless.

And btw, as a Hindu Atheists have not really been able to use Fallacies against me, this is more about Atheist V Christian arguments. The only thing Atheists can say to me is "Those are little g gods, not big G God" which is really only a way to make themselves feel like they can walk away being Atheist and not feel like they have been completely proven wrong in their Atheism.

And it proves nothing, but even actually accepts that they are Gods. Just not with a big g. So it accepts that they at least exist.

Many Atheists are not really "A-Theist" but "A-Christian"

The Ogdoad
https://www.rollitup.org/t/the-ogdoad.904616/#post-12469708

Someone try to prove to me that the Sun doesn't exist. Or that it is not a God. Actually prove it.

Or prove that Creation, Destruction and Preservation don't exist.

If you can't, you can still be Atheist, but you are doing that by choice, not because you are right.

And btw, all this Fallacy stuff started with New Atheism from Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and I am not sure either of them ever met a Hindu let alone debate one.

This whole argument is a fallacy. The straw man type.

You set this up totally wrong. "These atheists" who are running around saying something is a fallacy. You never name them. Until the end when you throw out the names of Dawkins and Hitchens.

Who are these atheists just throwing the fallacy word around?

Neither Hitchens nor Dawkins argued that way. There is an atheist, Matt Delahaunty, who does. But he is usually very clear in demonstrating why something is a fallacy.

And he is right. Christian apologists use fallacies all the time. When debating Christopher Hitchens, Frank Turek responded to Hitchens' arguments about the evil done by the religious by saying "I do evil, doesn't mean my dad doesn't exist, in fact he is sitting right there."

Perhaps the best apologist, William Lane Craig, famously slammed Dawkins for setting up Australian bishop George Pell for falsely saying that humans evolved from Neanderthals. Well the video clearly shows Pell stating this without any leading, and did so in response to the moderators questions and not Dawkins question.

So the religious do famously and constantly do make terrible leaps of logic and downright lie in support of their faith.

Perhaps you were talking about people you meet online or in your day to day who throw fallacy around. You can't hold regular people to the same standard of public intellectuals. Neither atheists or apologists. Chances are people you meet are only repeating what they have heard a prominent speaker say, and they're not as smart and don't understand it as well.

But yes, calling something a fallacy, when it is a fallacy is a proper argument against it.

Just because someone uses fallacious logic to reach a conclusion doesn't mean the conclusion is false. The fallacy fallacy occurs when someone acts as if bad logic disproves the conclusion, when all it really does is signal a weak argument.

If, however, someone is just saying that because you've used a fallacy, they do not find your argument convincing, there is nothing wrong with that. Especially when it comes to existential claims, in which the default logical position is negative. IOW, we assume things do not exist until there is reason to believe that they do. If the reasoning you give for why you think they do exist is fallacious, there is nothing wrong in staying with the default position. So, the only atheists who commit the fallacy fallacy in the way you describe are those who think they can disprove god all together. As I am sure you've been told many, many times, it is not necessary to disprove god in order to be an atheist. All that is needed is a lack of belief.

The fallacy fallacy is often committed by beginning students of logic who do not understand the difference between formal and informal fallacies, and those who do not understand or do not subscribe to the principle of charity in debate. The principle of charity simply suggests we should refute the strongest version of an argument rather than finding a weak point and declaring victory.

I like this quote:

“If you’re interested in being on the right side of disputes, you will refute your opponents’ arguments. But if you’re interested in producing truth, you will fix your opponents’ arguments for them. To win, you must fight not only the creature you encounter; you must fight the most horrible thing that can be constructed from its corpse.” –Black Belt Bayesian

That said, if you are continually being called out on fallacies to the point of starting a thread, that irritation can best be resolved by simply not using fallacies. Rather than give people a weak argument and then complain that they don't argue against a stronger version, give them a strong version to begin with. It's always easier to change yourself than to change other people.

Also, saying that this all started with Dawkins and Hitchens only signals that you first heard it from such sources. It doesn't mean that's where it started. That notion is a little naive and self-centered. People have been discussing these ideas for centuries.

Finshaggy said:

And btw, as a Hindu Atheists have not really been able to use Fallacies against me, this is more about Atheist V Christian arguments. The only thing Atheists can say to me is "Those are little g gods, not big G God" which is really only a way to make themselves feel like they can walk away being Atheist and not feel like they have been completely proven wrong in their Atheism.

And it proves nothing, but even actually accepts that they are Gods. Just not with a big g. So it accepts that they at least exist.

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I don't know what kind of Atheists you're running into.

I'm an Atheist and I don't give a shit if your god's name starts with a capital fucking A he's still a figment of the wishful populations imaginations.

Finshaggy said:

Many Atheists are not really "A-Theist" but "A-Christian"

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I'm laughing.

You haven't run into a true Atheist in your life have you?

Finshaggy said:

Many Atheists are not really "A-Theist" but "A-Christian"

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Cyrus420 said:

I'm laughing.

You haven't run into a true Atheist in your life have you?

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I'm not sure that's an unfair assessment of finshaggy. I myself am an atheist but I'm a protestant atheist.

All that really means is the religion of my upbringing was protestant Christianity. Christianity is the predominant religion of our culture so when I run into Christians who want to try to discuss this with me Christianity is the religion I'm thinking about most often.

If I were an atheist in Saudi Arabia I'd be an Islamic atheist.

ThickStemz said:

I'm not sure that's an unfair assessment of finshaggy. I myself am an atheist but I'm a protestant atheist.

All that really means is the religion of my upbringing was protestant Christianity. Christianity is the predominant religion of our culture so when I run into Christians who want to try to discuss this with me Christianity is the religion I'm thinking about most often.

If I were an atheist in Saudi Arabia I'd be an Islamic atheist.

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But that's just identifying your old belief.

How are you a protestant atheist besides the fact you used to be a protestant?

IS there a difference between a Protestant atheist and an Islamic atheist, besides having different upbringings?

An atheist is just an atheist; a non-believer who doesn't believe in gods.

Anything besides that has nothing to do with you being an atheist and is a descent into personal belief.

Cyrus420 said:

But that's just identifying your old belief.

How are you a protestant atheist besides the fact you used to be a protestant?

IS there a difference between a Protestant atheist and an Islamic atheist, besides having different upbringings?

An atheist is just an atheist; a non-believer who doesn't believe in gods.

Anything besides that has nothing to do with you being an atheist and is a descent into personal belief.

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When I think of the God I don't believe in, that's the idea of God that comes to mind.

ThickStemz said:

When I think of the God I don't believe in, that's the idea of God that comes to mind.

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But you're still an atheist and your prior belief has no weight on that. So why add what you were before you say what you are?

I went from Episcopal, to Catholic, to Satanist, to Atheist...I don't call myself an Satanic Episcopalian Catholic Atheist...I'm just an atheist.

Cyrus420 said:

But you're still an atheist and your prior belief has no weight on that. So why add what you were before you say what you are?

I went from Episcopal, to Catholic, to Satanist, to Atheist...I don't call myself an Satanic Episcopalian Catholic Atheist...I'm just an atheist.

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I don't go around calling myself a Baptist atheist.

But even Christopher Hitchens would say he was a protestant style of Christian atheist.

I suppose it's because even though ice rejected the idea of God's existence, a lot of cultural baggage remains. I still celebrate Christmas and other holidays with religious meaning. Its a social thing I think.

As an atheist, I don't get offended by depictions of baby Jesus at Christmas anymore than I do of Dracula at Halloween.

If there is a fallacy in your argument, it doesn't mean your conclusion is wrong, but it does mean the argument that lead to that conclusion is wrong. What use is a conclusion without a valid argument?
It's the theist's job to prove their conclusion correct. Despite thousands of years of trying, nobody has ever been able to do it. There are always fallacies. An informed atheist is simply a person who has noticed this. It is not a person who has an argument that deductively proves the negation of the conclusion 'there is a god'.

Besides... Most theists misrepresent atheism.

Athiesm isnt the belief that their is no god.

An atheist (in the west) is simply someone who looks at a Christain, hears his argument for why Jesus is Lord, and says, yeah I don't buy it. Besides, Islam has all that going for it too, and you don't think that's true.

Atheism is simply the failure to accept a belief in god.