@ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove - You said,

“How do you know if Maher is or is not anti-vaccine because of his atheism?  You don’t.”

This is known as an “Argument from Ignorance.”  Or, to state it general terms, “no one can prove the premise is true, but no one can prove the premise is false.  Therefore the premise is true.”  In other words, your claim about his atheism is just as vaccuous as mine – provided that you had interpreted my claim correctly.  You didn’t.  Read on.

You were wrong about what I claimed.  Note that in your response you said, “So you have no argument against my claim that his thinking is influenced by this atheism.“

That’s not what you said in your original post.  Re-read that post carefully.  You said that Maher believes the things he does “precisely because he is an atheist.”   You didn’t say his thinking about vaccines was “influenced” by his atheism.   That’s the difference.  

This type of logical fallacy is known as “Fallacy of the Single Cause”; i.e, that there is only one cause for an outcome when in reality there may be many.  This is especially true when both atheists and Christians can be anti-vaccine by sharing equivalent beliefs on that particular subject.  Atheists are no more or less likely to be anti-vaccine than atheists.  There is no precise reason for anti-vaccine beliefs.

I did not establish the “Single Cause” context.  You did, when you used the phrase “precisely because he is an atheist.”

Now re-read my post carefully with your “Single Cause” stipulation in mind.  Note that I never said Maher’s beliefs about vaccines were NOT influenced by atheism.  I said that those beliefs were not “precisely because he is an atheist.”    In other words, he could have been influenced by other beliefs in addition to atheism – just as Christians who are anti-vaccine are influenced by beliefs in addition to Christianity. 

Besides, declaring something like “So you have no argument against my claim that his
thinking is influenced by this atheism” doesn’t make it so.  As you can see here, you misrepresented what I was saying.  In fact, you precisely misrepresented it. 

Then you said, “my claim merely follows the thought flow of the blog” (note emphasis).   This is a form of ad hominem reasoning.  The insult in this case is implied – that your opponent was incapable of understanding something that you were merely claiming.  The adverb “simply” could also be used to imply the insult.   Either way, it’s a fallacious argument on that basis.  You weren’t merely following the thought flow of the blog.

Finally you said,

“If Krisko can blame Christianity for all the bad things that supposed Christians do then why is it not logical to conclude that all the bad things atheists do is caused by their atheism?”

This is known as an Association Fallacy.  “If  A causes ‘all the bad things that believers in A do’, then it is true that B causes ‘all bad things that believers in B do’.”   In other words, a common property between two arguments (‘all the bad things that believers in (A or B) do”)  means that if one argument’s conclusion is true, the other argument’s conclusion must also be true.

No dice.  Whether or not Krisko’s argument is true has nothing to do with whether or not yours is. 

Besides, re-read my original post.  I never said I agreed with Krisko’s conclusion.   Do you know that means about your final argument in this context?

@ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove - 

You said, “Your problem is with Krisko.  I only assumed his mode of thought.”

Why bother?  If his arguments are invalid for the reasons I describe, why express more invalid arguments using the same “mode of thought”?  What’s the point?

You also said, “also, when a sophist starts playing word games it means he has no
argument.”

The premise and conclusion are both false.

You then said, “This is a Xanga post, not a doctoral thesis.”

If the arguments are logically fallacious, whether or not a Xanga post is a doctoral thesis is irrelevant.

You finally said, “my meaning is clear as a bell.”

There’s no question about the clarity of your meaning.  However, it’s still fallacious logic.

@ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove -

You said, “If you check out Alan’s account you’ll find out that he’s the troll.”

This is an “Ad Hominem” attack.  Note that I did not insult you personally, or even imply that you were incapable of understanding my arguments by saying things like “my claim

merely

follows the thought flow of the blog.”

Do you believe that I am a troll because I post opinions contrary to yours?  If you check my account, you will see that this is what I have done.  BTW, Note that I also did not check your account in order to pass personal judgements about you.

You said,

“In fact, he’s probably one of your good friends.”

I don’t know Krisko personally, or even what his real name is.  Our only contacts have been via my posts on this blog. 

In this case your conclusion is wrong because it has no basis “in fact”.

@GodlessLiberal - Sorry to use your forum this way.  It’s very difficult for me to ignore logical errors – especially in the context of such a volatile controversy.

As an Agnostic, I am no less prey to the Association Fallacy – with the added error of misrepresentation.  Often, the reasoning is as follows:

“If you are an Agnostic, you are an Atheist.”

The labels applied to Atheists on the basis of the behaviors of Richard Dawkins, et al, are then applied to me as well.

Thankfully, no one in this thread has done this to me.  I’ve only been called a troll.