Pious Fraud

Whenever a logical fallacy is committed, the fallacy has its roots in Agrippa's trilemma. All human thought (without Divine revelation) is based on one of three unhappy possibilities. These three possibilities are infinite regression, circular reasoning, or axiomatic thinking. This is known as Agrippa's trilemma. Some have claimed that only logic and math can be known; however, that is not true. Without Divine revelation, neither logic nor math can be known. Science is limited only to pragmatic thinking because of the weakness of human reasoning, which is known as Agrippa's trilemma. Pious fraud, a form of axiomatic thinking, is one of these three unhappy possibilities.

Pious Fraud occurs when the end is said to justify the means.

Examples of Pious Fraud

International Planned Parenthood Federation: "The federation estimates that of 500,000 annual maternal deaths, complications from unsafe abortion account for approximately 70,000, or 13 per cent."

No source is given for these figures, and mostly it is impossible to get these statistics. Pro-abortionists used the number, 5,000-10,000 deaths yearly in the U.S. due to illegal abortions prior to Roe v Wade. They later admitted that this was a useful number to win the court case when the actual number was 39 deaths.

Bernard Nathanson, M.D., Aborting America (New York: Doubleday, 1979: ". . . we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always '5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year.' I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the 'morality' of the revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics. The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason which had to be done was permissible."

The abortion industry was first driven by a group of people who were certain that they were correct. This certainty was based on assumptions. Because they were so certain, lies were justified.

From a French recording of internationally recognised geneticist, Professor Jerome Lejeune, at a lecture given in Paris on March 17, 1985. Translated by Peter Wilders of Monaco:"We have no acceptable theory of evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain. I teach the synthetic theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it’s good, we know it is bad, but because there isn’t any other. Whilst waiting to find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact, which is a first approximation…"

This is the "Fake it until you make it" fallacy. Pretend you are certain of the Big-Bang-Billions-of-Years-No-Flood-Molecules-to-Man story that has no real evidence, and the students will be ignorant of the facts and become evolutionistic evangelists. (This example comes from here.)

In opposition to the Ark Encounter in Kentucky, anti-Bible activists are launching a campaign of disinformation, even claiming that the amusement park is being built with public funds. In reality, any tourist attraction can apply for incentives that will eventually give them a portion of the State sales tax that they collect.

For those who have an anti-Bible mindset, lying in this way is justified if it makes it harder to build the amusement part with a Noah’s Ark theme.

Under Secularism, Atheism, Agnosticism, Naturalism, Materialism, Post Modernism, Relativism, or any other philosophies that fall under the Münchhausen Trilemma, presentation is at least as important as content.

Bill Nye has, since a debate in which he argued against Creation science, said that style and presentation are as important as content.

Fallacy Abuse

Dave Oldridge: "In philosophy, we call it the pious fraud fallacy, and all creationist apologists are guilty of it to some degree or other."

Notice that Dave makes this claim with no example. That doesn't automatically make it a lie. Perhaps he would be able to give an example for every person who gives a reason why he or she understands that God created the Heavens and the Earth in six days. The word, "all," implies that Dave is all-knowing. This is a fallacy. The physical evidence can be argued either way; however, the argument for the Big-Bang-Billions-of-Years-No-Flood-Molecules-to-Man story has terrible conflicts with what can be observed and no proof of any kind that it actually happened. The Creation-Flood-Young-Earth account, on the other hand, violates no scientific laws. The basis of the Big-Bang-Billions-of-Years-No-Flood-Molecules-to-Man story runs into the Münchhausen Trilemma, which disallows any truth. It disallows any absolutes. On the other hand, the Creation-Flood-Young-Earth account is based on Divine revelation as God speaks directly to each person's innermost mind through Scripture.