Faith is believing what you know ain't so.: Tropes

A list of apologist tropes

Trope 1: All Scripture is to be understood in the context of other Scripture

If a verse doesn't say what you want it to mean, find another verse which does, even if it's a contradiction.

Trope 2: Christianity invented the Golden Rule

Nope.

Matthew 22:39 is better than the Golden Rule
It's a version of the Golden Rule. "Philosophically, The Golden Rule involves a person perceiving their neighbor also as "I" or "self"

Trope 3: Democracy can only succeed if the majority of the population are religious.

Not according to the evidence.

The regimes that took power after the French/Russian revolutions were violent because of atheism.

No, they were violent because they were totalitarian.
Russian Revolution explained
French Revolution explained

The American Revolution was not violent like the French revolution, because of Christianity

That's a faulty comparison because the situations were very different.

Atheist authoritarian regimes are always bad

Authoritarian regimes are always bad, regardless of the adjective.

Trope 4: The concept of a multiverse was invented by atheists in order to counter the fine tuning argument.

Wrong on both counts. But even if it was, that wouldn't make it wrong.

Trope 5: Inductive arguments qualify as evidence for the existence of God

No they don't. An inductive argument isn't evidence. Induction differs from deductive proof or demonstration not only in induction's failure to preserve truth (true premises may lead inductively to false conclusions) but also in failing of monotonicity: adding true premises to a sound induction may make it unsound. In any case, I have yet to see an inductive argument for God that isn't weak or flawed..

Sub-trope 5.1: No distinction between speculation, hypotheses, theories and facts

The lack of understanding of what those terms mean results in statements such as "the supernatural is a fact!" or "The resurrection is not a hypothesis!" and so on.

Trope 6: Moral Relativism is a bad thing

It is neither good nor bad. It's just a fact of life.

Trope 7: Science requires faith in the same way that religion does.

No it doesn't, but this is a common apologist argument based on a false equivocation of the different meanings of the word "faith". One meaning is belief without evidence (e.g. God), another meaning is confidence based on evidence (e.g. evolution).

Trope 8: Atheism is the default alternative to Christianity

When a negative aspect of Christianity is mentioned, an apologist may respond with a negative criticism of atheism. This is pointless for two reasons: The person criticising Christianity is not necessarily advocating atheism; and two wrongs don't make a right

Trope 9: The Bible is the basis of morality

It isn't.

Classic apologist quote: "Christians have a much greater motivation to solve the world's problems--and all other problems--than you do!"

No they don't.

Trope 10: If someone doubts a claim that God exists, that person has the burden of proof.