In this article NMcDonal writes about the most common logical fallacies he has used and heard other Christians use before to defend their faith ("bad reasoning"). According to the author, logic is good as long as it is not the "ultimate end-all of argumentation". It is not supposed to be an authoritative tool. The 15 logical fallacies he mentions are Ad Hominem, Straw Man, False Analogy, Slippery Slope, Confusion equals Cause, Argument from Authority, Correlation equals Causation, Psychologist's Fallacy, False Dilemma, Moral Equivalence, Meaningless Question, Argument from Consequence, Red Herring, Begging the Question, and Appeal to Ignorance. Basically, these are all fallacies everyone should watch out for, not just Christians. It is very easy to manipulate the debate to one's favor by using these techniques and most people do not even notice.
I recently read the book Freakonomics, and the authors mention how not too long ago, people thought that simply having books at home made kids smarter. This is a Correlation Equals Causation fallacy, because in reality it was not having the books around the kids that made them smart. Those books were simply indicators of a well-educated and financially stable family (that means the parents who are supporting for the family have good jobs; probably due to good education). This means that the kid was already born into an advantageous position. The parents value education, since they studied hard in college themselves to get a good job, so they buy more books. Factors like educational value and financial status were more correlated to the kid being smart. (I should also mention that the kids that were considered to be smarter, did not read more or as much as the other kids that were not considered as smart.)
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