Are all debaters considered apologists to their respective field they advocate? At what point is labeling someone an apologist considered legitimate versus an unwarranted ad hominem attack? Please, if there is error in my reasoning, tell me. I really just want to understand this. Thank you.<\/p>\n

Finally, the responder replies:<\/p>\n

I mean, as you note above, the technical definition is just a reasoned defense, usually related to religion. It’s not a word that has to have a negative connotation, sort of how the word \u201cdiscriminating\u201d can have a completely neutral meaning, or a completely negative meaning. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that most people that spend time arguing for a side could be considered \u201capologists\u201d if they take on the style of apologias.<\/p>\n

When people use apologist negatively, they are implying not defense of a position, but the worst kind of \u201creligious\u201d argument: using any argument you can possibly think of, no matter how weak or attenuated, to justify your belief. Excusing, rather than arguing for.<\/p>\n

Or, to put another way, you don’t believe your conclusion because of your argument. You believe your conclusion, and then you are presenting an argument that supports that conclusion. And, even if there were some flaw in that conclusion, you would still come up with something to either explain it away or justify it.<\/p>\n

This is why it often comes up in religious debates. Because you don’t believe in God because of your theory of Theodicy, you’ve developed your theory of Theodicy to defend your belief in God. If your argument allows for the nature of your belief to change based on the argument and counter arguments (maybe God is more forgiving than you thought, or suffering somehow different), you’re far from the \u201cnegative\u201d kind of apologia. If, on the other hand, your argument is just a pretext, a way to shield your existing faith from another’s critique without really engaging either the critique or the facts, than you’re closer to that meaning. The same could happen in a scientific context I imagine too\u2026<\/p>\n