Glossary of Terms, Fallacies, and Methods
This glossary defines analytical terms used throughout The Hatchetman Atheist. These entries describe recurring errors in reasoning, common cognitive biases, and basic tools of historical scholarship. The goal is not to police language or enforce orthodoxy, but to make arguments clearer, criticism sharper, and bad history easier to spot when it appears.
Table of Contents
- Site-Specific Concepts and Terms
- Parallelism and Comparative Religion Errors
- Historical Scholarship and Method
- Logical Fallacies and Cognitive Biases
- Evolutionary Concepts and Mechanisms
Site-Specific Concepts and Terms
Six Degrees of Jesus Fallacy
A pattern of argument in which superficial similarities between religious figures are chained together and treated as evidence of borrowing or plagiarism, despite the absence of historical contact, textual dependence, or shared cultural meaning. Rather than demonstrating influence, the argument manufactures it by stretching minor resemblances until they appear decisive. The resemblance is allowed to do the work of proof while the lack of evidence is ignored. Term coined by Tim Ross.
Parallelism and Comparative Religion Errors
Illicit Parallelism
The practice of drawing conclusions from similarities between traditions without demonstrating historical contact, influence, or contextual equivalence.
Parallelomania
An excessive focus on finding parallels, often resulting in exaggerated or invented similarities whose accumulation is mistaken for evidence.
Semantic Inflation
A rhetorical process in which a modest or ambiguous detail is gradually redefined into something far more specific or loaded.
Mythic Compression
The reduction of complex religious narratives into simplified motifs that erase distinctions of meaning, genre, and context.
Retroactive Mythmaking
The projection of later beliefs or symbols backward into earlier texts or traditions that did not originally contain them.
The Copycat Jesus Thesis
A modern claim that Christianity originated primarily through borrowing or plagiarism from earlier pagan myths, typically relying on parallelism rather than demonstrated influence.
Six Degrees of Jesus Fallacy (reference)
A site-specific term describing a form of illicit parallelism in religious comparison. For the full definition and origin of the term, see Six Degrees of Jesus Fallacy.
Historical Scholarship and Method
This section outlines core concepts and analytical tools used in modern historical scholarship. These methods do not produce certainty. They are probabilistic frameworks designed to evaluate reliability, plausibility, and explanatory power.
Chaoskampf
Chaoskampf is a term from comparative mythology describing a recurring ancient narrative pattern in which a deity establishes order by subduing, restraining, or overcoming a primordial force of chaos. This chaos is frequently personified as the sea, a serpent, a dragon, or a monstrous adversary. The Chaoskampf motif is widespread in Ancient Near Eastern literature, including Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and Egyptian sources, where creation is understood as the imposition of order rather than material manufacture from nothing. In biblical studies, the concept is used to contextualize shared mythic language and imagery while recognizing that Hebrew authors often mute or demythologize the combat element to emphasize absolute divine sovereignty.
Primary Source
A document, artifact, inscription, or testimony produced close in time to the events it describes. Primary sources are essential for historical reconstruction but are not inherently accurate, neutral, or complete. Each reflects the perspective, limitations, and motivations of its creator.
Secondary Source
An interpretation or analysis that engages with primary sources rather than originating from the historical moment itself. Secondary sources vary widely in quality and must be evaluated according to methodological rigor, transparency of argument, and responsible handling of evidence.
Historical Plausibility
The degree to which a claim coheres with what is independently known about the social, political, economic, and cultural context of a given period. Claims that align with established context require less evidentiary support; implausible claims require substantially more.
Functional Ontology
Functional ontology is a scholarly framework, particularly associated with John H. Walton and Ancient Near Eastern studies, that defines existence in terms of function, role, and purpose rather than material composition. Within this framework, something is considered to “exist” when it has been assigned a role within an ordered system, especially a cosmic or societal structure. Applied to biblical texts such as Genesis 1, functional ontology interprets creation as the establishment and authorization of order and function, not the material manufacturing of physical substances. This approach contrasts with modern material ontology, which treats physical substance as the primary criterion for existence.
Criterion of Multiple Attestation
A heuristic that considers a claim more likely to be historical if it appears independently in multiple sources. Independence is essential; sources that copy, harmonize, or draw from a shared tradition do not constitute separate attestations. This criterion increases probability, not certainty.
Criterion of Embarrassment
The observation that authors are less likely to invent material that undermines their authority, contradicts their agenda, or weakens their message. While sometimes useful, this criterion is limited by the difficulty of reconstructing an author’s values and rhetorical strategies.
Criterion of Dissimilarity
A method that highlights material unlikely to have originated from either earlier tradition or later theological development. It can help identify distinctive elements but is frequently overstated and can artificially detach historical figures from their cultural environments.
Glossary of Analytical Concepts
Conspicuous Omission
The absence of information that would reasonably be expected given an author’s subject, purpose, audience, and historical context. A conspicuous omission becomes analytically significant when the missing detail would strengthen the author’s case, clarify a central claim, or align with the author’s stated goals.
Conspicuous omission does not prove suppression, deception, or bad faith. It instead raises questions about:
- the author’s priorities,
- the limits of their knowledge,
- their rhetorical strategy,
- or the development of a tradition over time.
When multiple independent sources omit the same expected detail, historians must consider whether the omission reflects ignorance, evolving narrative needs, or later interpretive expansion rather than historical memory.
Logical Fallacies and Cognitive Biases
Argument from Silence
The claim that because a source does not mention something, it therefore did not exist or did not happen. Silence alone is rarely decisive in historical analysis.
False Equivalence
Treating two things as meaningfully the same despite substantial differences in context, category, or function.
Genetic Fallacy
Judging a claim solely by its origin rather than by the evidence supporting it.
Motte-and-Bailey Argument
A rhetorical maneuver in which a bold claim is advanced, then replaced with a weaker and more defensible version when challenged.
Special Pleading
Applying standards selectively in order to protect a preferred conclusion from criticism.
Confirmation Bias
The tendency to favor information that supports existing beliefs while discounting contradictory evidence.
Category Error
A category error is a logical mistake that occurs when a concept, property, or explanation is applied to a category to which it does not belong. The error does not stem from false information, but from misclassification—treating one kind of thing as though it were another. In philosophy of language and logic, category errors often involve applying physical or empirical expectations to abstract, functional, or conceptual entities. In biblical interpretation, category errors commonly arise when ancient theological or cosmological texts are read as if they were modern scientific explanations, thereby forcing the text to answer questions it was never intended to address.
Pattern Recognition Bias
The inclination to see meaningful connections in unrelated or weakly related data.
Presentism
Interpreting ancient texts or events through modern assumptions and categories that did not exist at the time.
Availability Heuristic
Overestimating the importance of claims that are vivid, repeated, or easily recalled, regardless of their accuracy.
Evolutionary Concepts and Mechanisms
Ad Hoc
A type of argument or explanation introduced specifically to rescue a claim from contradictory evidence rather than to generate testable predictions. In debates over evolution, ad hoc explanations are often invoked to preserve non-evolutionary positions without independent empirical support.
Chromosomal Fusion (Human Chromosome 2)
A documented evolutionary event in which two ancestral ape chromosomes fused end-to-end to form human chromosome 2. This fusion is independently supported by telomere remnants, centromere structure, and comparative genomics, and represents large-scale evolutionary change preserved at the molecular level.
Endemism
The ecological condition in which a species or population is restricted to a specific geographic area. Endemism often arises through geographic isolation and can promote speciation by limiting gene flow and exposing populations to distinct selective pressures.
Endogenous Retroviruses (ERVs)
Genetic sequences derived from ancient viral infections that became integrated into the germline and are inherited across generations. Shared ERVs located at the same positions on the same chromosomes across related species provide strong evidence of common ancestry.
Genetic Alignment (Sequence Alignment)
A comparative genomics method in which DNA sequences from different organisms are lined up to identify corresponding regions. Alignment allows scientists to compare orthologous genes letter by letter while excluding regions that cannot be reliably matched. Genetic alignment underlies gene-level similarity estimates such as the 98–99% identity reported between humans and chimpanzees.
Genetic Similarity Between Humans and Chimpanzees
Comparative genomic analyses reveal extensive genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees, reflecting shared ancestry. Debates over exact percentage values often obscure the more important point: the structure, location, and function of similarities and differences closely match evolutionary predictions.
Genetics
The study of heredity and variation in organisms. In evolutionary biology, genetics provides the mechanism by which variation arises and is transmitted, allowing populations to diverge over time through mutation, recombination, and natural selection.
Insertions and Deletions (Indels)
Genetic differences in which segments of DNA are inserted into or deleted from a genome relative to another species. Indels can range from a few base pairs to large chromosomal regions. When indels are included in genome-wide comparisons, overall similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA decreases to approximately 95%.
Kitzmiller v. Dover
A 2005 U.S. federal court case examining the inclusion of intelligent design in public school science curricula. The court ruled that intelligent design is not science and that its arguments rely on theological rather than empirical foundations.
Non-Coding DNA
DNA sequences that do not code for proteins. Non-coding DNA includes regulatory regions, repetitive elements, mobile genetic elements, and degraded gene remnants. While once dismissed as “junk,” many non-coding regions play important roles in gene regulation and development, while others reflect evolutionary history rather than current function.
Orthologous Genes (Orthologous Sites)
Genes in different species that originated from a single gene in a common ancestor and typically retain the same biological function. Comparisons of orthologous genes allow meaningful, letter-by-letter DNA alignment and form the basis for high similarity estimates between closely related species.
Paley’s Watchmaker Analogy
A classical design argument proposing that biological complexity implies a designer in the same way a watch implies a watchmaker. The analogy fails to account for cumulative selection, gradual modification, and the non-random retention of small advantageous changes.
Post Hoc (Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc)
A logical fallacy in which a cause-and-effect relationship is assumed solely because one event follows another. In evolutionary debates, post hoc reasoning often appears when temporal sequence is mistaken for evidence of intentional causation.
Protein-Coding Genes
Segments of DNA that contain instructions for building proteins, the molecular machines responsible for most cellular functions. Protein-coding genes represent a small percentage of the genome but account for much of the anatomical and physiological similarity between humans and chimpanzees.
Reinforcement
An evolutionary process in which natural selection strengthens reproductive barriers when hybrid offspring have reduced fitness. Reinforcement accelerates reproductive isolation even between closely related populations.
Reproductive Isolation
Any biological barrier that reduces or prevents gene flow between populations. Reproductive isolation may be behavioral, mechanical, ecological, temporal, or genetic, and often develops gradually rather than appearing suddenly.
Speciation
The evolutionary process by which populations diverge and become reproductively isolated over time. Speciation typically proceeds through the accumulation of small genetic changes rather than abrupt transformations.
Species Concept (Biological Species Concept)
A framework defining species as populations whose members can interbreed and produce fertile offspring while remaining reproductively isolated from other such populations. This concept emphasizes gene flow and isolation rather than appearance alone.
Teleological Design Arguments
Claims that biological complexity implies intentional design rather than evolutionary processes. These arguments typically assume that complex structures cannot arise through incremental change and often misunderstand how natural selection operates over long timescales.