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Logic

Quick Thought: Can God Make a Rock so Big He Can’t Lift It?

This week marked the beginning of a new year of Sunday School classes at our church. Each year provides a fresh opportunity to help young minds think well and further their relationship with and understanding of God. I like to ask the incoming first graders for their biggest, hardest question about God. That gives us the whole year to make sure they hear the answer.

After recovering from the question of one child who asked “How do mommies and daddies make babies?” (“for the love of everything, child, ask your parents!!”), one boy volunteered that he has “at least 500 questions” but “can God make a rock so big he can’t pick it up?” Continue Reading

September 23, 2015 by Danielle Camorlinga

Apologetics, Articles, Logic, Relativism, The Problem of Evil

8 Resources: Abortion, SLED Test & Trotting Out a Toddler

By now, you’re probably seen the undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress. If you haven’t, you can view the edited and unedited versions here, as well as Planned Parenthood’s response here. In the videos, representatives from Planned Parenthood discuss the sale (you can call it compensation, if you’d like, but it doesn’t change what is happening) of the tissue (that’s code for baby organs) that is procured from abortions with “buyers” from the CMA.

Since the first video was posted, two weeks of sharing videos, reading articles and signing petitions have followed. We have seen many debates (with varying degrees of civility) spawning in Facebook and Twitter feeds. For those opposed to the destruction of human life, they are filled with the desire to overthrow the Planned Parenthood machine. For those in favor, they fight back with venom. Both sides strike and I wonder, whose minds are changing? How will this play out?

As we have conversations and push forward toward the protection of unborn life, I wanted to share a few resources that you may be able to use to encourage reasonable discussions. First, you need to have some solid reasons for why you think abortion is wrong. Is a fetus a human or isn’t it? Is it really a woman’s “right” to choose? Realistically, as long as you know why you believe a person is a person at conception and why it is wrong for a person to be killed in the womb, you are on firm footing.

Social Media Graphics, Articles & Tools

I am including a few graphics here that we created from quotes in helpful articles, as well as an 8.5×11″ resource that covers the “SLED Test” and “Trotting Out a Toddler” approaches. I would recommend sharing them on Facebook or Twitter along with the link to the related article so that you can invite some interesting conversations.

The SLED Test & Trotting Out a Toddler

You can download the 8.5×11″ pdf here. Great presentation of the SLED Test here. More detail about Trotting Out a Toddler here.

For Facebook, Twitter or Instragram

Let’s Face It: Planned Parenthood Is Evil by David Harsanyi

While the tone of the article can be a bit coarse, I think David raises some interesting points and questions.

Partial-Birth Abortion is Not About Abortion by Greg Koukl

Abortion for Rape Victims? by Greg Koukl

See the investigative video HERE

Whose Body Parts Are They? by J.W. Wartick

Tissue, specimens, human being, flesh, fetus, baby… Whatever you choose to call it…

We hope these are helpful tools and conversation starters! If you share on Twitter (@youthapolonet) or Facebook (Youth Apologetics Network) be sure to tag us so we can follow along.

July 23, 2015 by Danielle Camorlinga

Articles, Logic

You’re Stupid. Ad Hominem in the Wild + 9 Resources

Ad hominem attacks abound on the internet. They are quick, easy to come up with, and completely illogical. Scroll down to the comment section of nearly any article and you will quickly be reminded of there existence. For this reason, I am fairly confident that we have all seen ad hominem in action, been on the receiving end, and personally doled it out.

The OWL at Purdue defines the ad hominem fallacy as:

An attack on the character of a person rather than his or her opinions or arguments. Example:

Green Peace’s strategies aren’t effective because they are all dirty, lazy hippies.

In this example, the author doesn’t even name particular strategies Green Peace has suggested, much less evaluate those strategies on their merits. Instead, the author attacks the characters of the individuals in the group.

There are a number of varieties of fallacies that fall into this category, and rather than reinvent the wheel, I would like to provide you with a few resources that will help you learn to recognize, counteract and avoid ad hominem attacks. Browse them at your leisure and then enjoy (I’m using that word loosely) encountering comments and articles that employ the vicious tactic. Some are directly applicable to training children, but some will be helpful for honing your familiarity and consequently applying that understanding to train children.

But first, a few quickly curated examples from Twitter to get us started:

#BaltimoreRiots Rand Paul has no room to judge father’s. Rand needs to concentrate on parenting his own son. Hypocrite!!!

— Debbie Owens (@Dowens8490) April 28, 2015

Stupid tweet of the day so far. “Atheists are religious zealots” https://t.co/FZW7Fu9kj4 — Free Thinking Father (@FThinkF) April 23, 2015

this is why #atheists are so stupid, here are the thoughts of their “great” leaders pic.twitter.com/cqKJ7xZ9ht — Leon Sum****** (@MarkusJ) April 12, 2015

Deep breaths everyone. Ready to learn more?

Video:

The Ad Hominem Fallacy | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios

Critical Thinking Fallacy: Ad Hominem | Wireless Philosophy

How Do You Handle Name Calling in a Winsome Way? | Stand to Reason

Articles:

An article about Ad Hominem by Edward Feser: What is an ad hominem fallacy?
“Notice what I am not saying. I am not saying that “You are a bad person; therefore your argument is invalid!” is a good response. It is not a good response; that would be an ad hominem fallacy. If the practices a person is defending really are immoral, there should be independent reasons, having nothing to do with his personal character, that show that they are.”
A handout from http://www.davidagler.com with a more detailed breakdown on the various ways that ad hominem fallacies can manifest: Critical Thinking Handout
Not ad hominem specific, but a post from Christian Mom Thoughts that gives examples of ways she is teaching her children to think critically (to NOT use fallacious arguments like ad hominem): How I’m Teaching My 6-Year-Olds to Be Critical Thinkers
Kenneth Samples breaks down the ad hominem attack and offers a 2 step response for folks on the receiving end: Attack the Argument, Not the Person
An article from Answers in Genesis that provides an excellent opportunity for you to pull apart arguments and practice recognizing which are fallacious and which are solid. Here they respond to an article by Hugh Ross in fairly standard young earth vs. old earth fashion. Perhaps you can keep a tally as you read. (Can’t we all just get along?)
Apologetics.com radio show had an episode about Insults and Loving the Neighbor. Not specifically about ad hominem, but an interesting discussion about the place of insult in the Christian life.