Logical Fallacies I
Demeaning the proponents of a claim instead of refuting their argument.
Personal Attack / Ad Hominem
Offering only weak or limited evidence to support a conclusion.
Hasty Generalization
Assuming that there are only two sides to a question and representing yours as the only correct one.
Either-Or Reasoning
To talk to Job, God comes down in a...
Whirlwind
An appeal to logic.
Logos
Assuming that something is true simply because an expert says so and ignoring evidence to the contrary.
Over-reliance on Authority
Giving easy answers to complicated questions, often by appealing to emotions rather than logic.
Oversimplifying
Pretending that one thing inevitably leads to another.
Slippery Slope
Job has three friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, and...
Zophar
An appeal to emotion.
Pathos
Directing the argument against a claim that nobody actually makes or that everyone agrees is very weak.
Straw Man
Assuming that because one thing resembles another, conclusions drawn from one also apply to the other.
False Analogy
Assuming that because one thing preceded another, the former caused the latter.
Confusing chronology with causality
Stephen Mitchell translates "Ha-Satan" as...
"The Accuser"
An appeal to authority.
Ethos
Manipulating readers' emotions to lead them to draw unjustified conclusions.
Sob Story
Attempting to misdirect the discussion by raising an essentially unrelated point.
Red Herring
Selecting or emphasizing the evidence that supports your claim and suppressing or playing down other evidence.
Slanting
In the Epilogue, who does God say has spoken falsely of him?
Job's three friends
This type of sentence is an argumentative claim that provides a blueprint for your paper.
Thesis Statement
Arguing that a claim is true by repeating the claim in different words.
Begging the Question
Misleading or hedging with ambiguous word choices.
Equivocating
The opposite of a "straw man" logical fallacy (Not in St. Martin's Guide, but was written on white board)
Steel Man Counter-Argument (i.e., To present the strongest counter-argument.)
The technical theological term for the form of writing that seeks to answer why God permits evil is...
Theodicy
Constructing a paragraph with your words, then author's words, and finally your words again refers to...
The Sandwich Method of Paragraph Construction