Argumentum ad Argument

It never ceases to amaze me how Christians will jump through intellectual hoops to justify their religious beliefs.  There is no end to the clever tricks and ploys they use in an effort to get around the simple truth that their belief isn't rational.  Have you ever heard the claim "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist"?  It's an obvious reversal of the truth - placing themselves in the position of the objective evaluator of facts, while the skeptical atheist supposedly abandons evidence in favor of some irrationally-motivated ideological position.  Clever.  But to a truly impartial judge, the tactic of the Christian in this ploy is obvious.  This is not an honest argument, nor is it any kind of argument at all.  It's an intellectual sham.  It's quite typical of the games we observe Christians playing to make themselves appear more intellectually competent than the facts would justify.

There's a reason we see this kind of gamesmanship.  It's not that Christians don't have the intellectual capacity to make a strong argument.  Of course they do.  But there is something they are lacking - and that is evidence.  Evidence is a crucial factor in making an argument.  But let's face it.  The empirical evidence that would support their beliefs just isn't there.  And they know that, but they don't want to admit it.  So they make these ploys to cover up the weakness of their position.  One such ploy is the reversal of truth I already mentioned.  Another is to attack the most reliable source of evidence - scientific investigation.  They tell us that the evidence they need to support their arguments isn't accessible to science.  And yet another tactic they employ is to stretch the definition of evidence to include subjective, dubious, or unreliable sources, and even things that don't fit the definition of 'evidence' at all.  For example, you often hear Christians claim that the evidence they have for their belief includes subjective inner feelings, or various logical "proofs" or arguments for the existence of God.  In lieu of genuine empirical evidence, they tend to rely heavily on the claim that arguments for God actually constitute evidence for belief.

Just to be clear, arguments may provide reason to believe something, but they are not evidence, which is generally understood to be a body of objectively observable facts.  Evidence describes a state of affairs that may provide clues to deduce what caused that state of affairs.  Oxford Dictionaries gives this definition of 'evidence':

the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. - Oxford Dictionaries

For example, a Christian might observe a beautiful sunset as evidence for the existence of God.  The sunset is the observable evidence, and God is the thing that supposedly caused it.  Of course, another person can look at the same evidence and come up with an entirely different explanation for what produced it.

This is where arguments come into the picture.  Arguments provide the logical linkage between evidence and the conclusion to be drawn from it.  The Christian could make a logical argument, in this case, to the effect that only God is capable of producing such beauty.  A scientist might make a completely different argument - that the beautiful red sky is the product of Reyleigh scattering of light due to particles in the atmosphere.  Note that both of these arguments use the same piece of evidence to arrive at very different conclusions (although one of them might draw upon additional facts that are ignored by the other - note that the definition indicates a "body of facts", not an isolated individual fact).  The evidence itself is factual and not subject to doubt, but arguments may be faulty.  Clearly, one or both of the arguments in this example may not be correct.  Arguments do not constitute evidence, and there is nothing in the definition of 'evidence' that would justify the Christian's claim that an argument is a form of evidence.

It would be problematic to say that an argument constitutes evidence for several reasons.  For one thing, as I noted already, the chain of logic in an argument is very often faulty.  The person making the argument may be convinced that his own logic is impeccable, while others can easily see flaws in it.  We see this all the time.  In the absence of an unbiased arbiter, it would be unwise to base one's belief on arguments in lieu of evidence.  Another problem is the very notion that one could simply invent evidence in the form of an argument.  It would be possible to justify belief in practically anything, simply on the basis that there's an argument for it, when in fact there is not a shred of observable factual evidence that supports such belief.  One could claim that his argument for the existence of little green men on the moon is all the "evidence" he needs to justify belief.

The philosopher Stephen Toulmin created a generalized model of argumentation that includes these major elements:

1. A claim – the key point being made
2. Evidence to support the claim – Empirical data, published work, studies, etc.
3. The warrant – making the logical connections –  the reasoning drawing out the evidence
4. Qualifications: conditions limiting main claim – This argument only works within these limits ... - Toulmin

The key thing to recognize here is that evidence is the basis of an argument.  It is an essential element of any argument, but once again, there is no reason in this model to conclude that an argument itself is a form of evidence.  If that were the case, then there may be an argument that is unsupported by anything but more arguments.  This would result in an infinite regress.  Obviously, there must be factual evidence as the basis for argumentation.  If a Christian claims that arguments are the evidence in support of his belief, and those arguments are not supported by factual evidence, he is really admitting that he is lacking actual observable evidence.  He calls his arguments 'evidence' to cover up that fact.

This is all part of the intellectual gamesmanship that Christians engage in to make their beliefs seem justified when they really aren't.  I used to think they do this in an effort to fool others.  Now, I understand that they are actually fooling themselves.