Poisoning the Well

Something I've noticed about religious apologists is not just their use of fallacious arguments, but also how often they claim an opinion they don't like is a fallacious argument just because they don't like it. 

I've also noticed that they often present an argument which destroys their own argument. "Hoist by their own petard" to paraphrase the bard.

For example. a Creationist is of the opinion that this blog is an example of "Poisoning the Well."  He demonstrates this by... you guessed it... poisoning the well!



Posted by A Creationist on 20 Apr 2014 at 5:11AM

From Wikipedia: 
“Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a rhetorical device where adverse information about a target is pre-emptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person is about to say. Poisoning the well can be a special case of argumentum ad hominem, and the term was first used with this sense by John Henry Newman in his work Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864).[1] The origin of the term lies in well poisoning, an ancient wartime practice of pouring poison into sources of fresh water before an invading army, to diminish the attacking army's strength.”

JimC: “Here you will find some of the bizarre conversations I've had over the years with creationists, religious apologists and Evangelical Christians, as well as explanations of the fallacious arguments they can't seem to help using.”

The previous is a quote from JimC on his blog. It’s telling in many ways. Jim loves to poison the well in discussions so that he sets discussion up to favor his view. Notice that the conversations are “bizarre.” It’s doubtful that Jim is talking about his side of discussions. 

He identifies three groups: Creationists, Religious Apologists, and Evangelical Christians. Are these groups different? How so? He does not say. 

He claims to “explain” to these poor creationists, religious apologists and evangelical Christians how their arguments are “fallacious.” But Jim is sympathetic to this “fact.” Those Christians just can’t seem to help themselves.


But it seems Jim loves to generalize, obfuscate, misrepresent, and use all manner of fallacious tactics – all the while calling his own arguments, rational.