Why do religious people attack non-religious people using straw man arguements?

Question

For example,
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ArRm3YnPN54uGNBR22Cdi9rd7BR.?qid=20070211060743AAflZnp
in that question a lot of people attacked the asker saying "you don't know anythin about the bible" or something along these lines,

Now, this is a straw man arguement, isn't it?
Check out these logical fallacies,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Logical_fallacies

Rather than address the actual question, the religiouis persons (some of them not all) merely attack the person asking.

Why do they do that why not address the specific question? Is the position suggested by the question correct and there for not attacked, but since its "faith" the asker is attacked?

Answer 1

Here is the truth.

Mainly because the questions are stupid or just a form of incitement. Maybe you and others should consider asking a question that you really want an answer to. Instead of playing games of asking questions for some other reason. It gets very old when 95 percent of the questions are worthless.

Answer 2

Perhaps because the religious beliefs that they hold do not correspond with reality anyway, therefore logic is left in the dust. You cannot change a closed mind, no matter how many logical fallacies they throw at you. If you question the beliefs of many religious people, no matter how illogical or (dare I say it?) absurd those beliefs may be, their only response can be that YOU are the one at fault, not they. I also find it strange that they resort to the final authority of a book that is inconsistent and illogical, a collection of myths and fables from groups of wandering tribes and writings that contradict each other about events that occurred over 2,000 years ago. but hey, they'll find out at the end anyway, won't they, when there is no Pearly Gates, no eternal life, just nothingness.

Answer 3

Little knowledge is dangerous. They only know what is in the bible and some people told them that they should never look anywhere else. So, those who are not religious read a lot. Do research topics and that is too much for the brains of many Christians. They then feel under siege. So, their only way out is to throw tantrums like little spoiled brats. They then canonized those silly answers!

Answer 4

That's called an ad hominem fallacy rather than a straw man but the principle is the same-they both serve to avoid directly addressing the issue in question.

Answer 5

Religious people don't do the attacking, it's another group we all know which you claim to be one of. You claim to be an atheist and ask questions that are insulting to God like isn't Jesus vain to worship Himself. You mock what you don't understand and it gets us mad. It's you that's attacking God, we're just defending Him.
As far as our defense goes, atheists are never satisfied with our word, when we give them scripture or tell them that the bible says every man knows the truth inside himself that there is a God because God makes His existence known to man through His creations. God has chosen to only reveal Himself to those who believe in Him so why do atheists ALWAYS ask us to prove Him? Do what I did and ask Him yourself if He exists. He'll show you. No one can show you but Him.

Answer 6

Attack is easier than answering. Answering questions of faith is very difficult because we are asked to put facts to something that is faith. If we had fact we would not need faith. We have only a book to base our beliefs on and when that book is not accepted as a valid source we have left to us only reason which will fail us if we are not ready for hard work and thought.

Answer 7

They may not have an actual answer...not every answer is found in the dusty 2000 year old book. Course, they also may feel backed into a corner by the question and when one feels like that the only thing on their mind is to strike back and the easiest target is you not the actual question.

Answer 8

It's not so much a straw man argument as an "ad hominem" attack.

They're essentially saying, "You're too stupid to understand something so of course you won't get it."

A Straw Man argument assigns a particular position to the proposition, e.g., "Evolution says we came from monkeys." Even though this is not the position of evolutionary theory, it is stated as such. Then the opposition attacks their straw man, ("Evolution says we came from monkeys") as if they were attacking evolutionary theory.

^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^

Answer 9

To be fair I have seen atheists do exactly the same.

In fact, I'd say there's an element of strawmannery to this very question ;)

Answer 10

Where do you tie straw men? To a stake.

Do straw men burn? Easily.



Guess what the godbots want to do to non-christians?

That's why they lie.


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