Straw Man Argument

"My answer is, that this sort of argument is common to all those who write against Luther. They assert the very things they assail, or they set up a man of straw whom they may attack".

β€” Martin Luther

A straw man argument involves misrepresenting your opponent's argument and then attacking that misrepresentation instead of their actual argument.

Example:

Person A: "I think the best explanation is that God is identical to the universe because only this view of God can be justified."

Person B: "You're just redefining the term God."

In this example, Person B misrepresents Person A's argument by distorting it to make it easier to attack. God is a being, the supreme being. Person A is actually saying that the universe is a being not that God is a blob of all the matter there is. Person B creates a "straw man" by distorting the original argument into something more extreme or different, then argues against that distorted version rather than the actual point made by Person A.

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