Introduction
A couple weeks ago, I addressed an argument that I heard being used as evidence against theism and against my view of the age of the universe (you can read it
here). I received a message that I was offering a strawman of the opposing view. While in discussion, I realized that it was probably a good idea to go into some more detail about properly identifying when someone is arguing against a strawman. It applies, not just to that particular conversation, but to all discussions of defenders of any worldview.
I have posted in the past about the importance of
avoiding the strawman argument. Unless I take that seriously and address accusations that I have presented a strawman, that post is quite hollow. I will be using parts of that initial message as an example in this post, but the specific challenge is not the focus of this post, so if you wish to challenge the specifics, please post the comments on the other post.
The accusation of a strawman proposed that I was applying a specific heretical view of Christianity to an entire view within the Christian Church (young-earth creationism [YEC]). I've been in conversations with the this person in the past, and I suspected that he knew that I wasn't applying it to all YEC adherents, but he wasn't sure how to express where he sensed a strawman. Of course, my sense could be wrong; but nevertheless, I identified four different areas where a strawman could be offered in a description/critique of a worldview that we all should be familiar with when composing our own arguments/material and consuming others' arguments/material: