Inane logic by Eric Hovind

In previous posts I have mentioned Ray Comfort (who, among other things, really loves to fallaciously play with words and is enamored with gnosticism) and William Lane Craig (who's a really smug pseudointellectual who thinks that "philosophy" trumps all science). Today I'd like to mention another creationist celebrity, Eric Hovind, the son of an even bigger creationist celebrity (Kent Hovind.)

When Eric is not just blindly repeating the same old tired arguments of his father (usually word-for-word), his own arguments tend to be on the really hilarious side.

For instance, one claim he just loves is "all arguments against God assume God."

It's hard to imagine weirder insane troll logic than this. He is saying that if you present any arguments against the existence of God, you are assuming the existence of God. Therefore your argument is contradictory and illogical.

The thing is, he presents this claim in all seriousness, as if it was actually a good and valid counter-argument. And many people are listening to him without batting an eye. Just like that. (It really tells something about the intellectual capabilities of his audience, doesn't it?)

The argument is completely equivalent, and equally silly, as saying for example "if you claim that this car is not red, you are assuming that it is red" or "if you claim that you can't square a circle you are assuming that you can square a circle" ("and therefore your argument is contradictory and invalid.") It makes no sense.

Of course the idea behind this silly argument is the same kind of pre-emptive self-defense mechanism as with "you are not really an atheist" (which I have mentioned before.) It predisposes the listener to reject all and every argument against God outright, without even listening to or thinking about it. After all, if it's an argument against God, it already assumes God, so it's automatically contradictory and thus incorrect, isn't it?

This is just a more complicated (but not less childish) way of putting fingers in one's ears, singing "lalalala" and saying "I don't have to listen to anything you are saying because you are wrong."