Fallacy of many questions:
| Definition | Example |
| When someone asks a question that presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved. | So Henry, have you stopped beating your wife? |
| Also known as: complex question / fallacy of presupposition / loaded question / plurium interrogationum | |
| Notes | |
| Henry, in the example above, can’t have stopped beating his wife until it has been established that he actually was beating his wife. This fallacy combines several assumptions into a interrogative statement that erroneously demands a single binary answer. | |
Case Study One
Atheists are often asked a question similar to “So, if you don’t believe in the afterlife, why don’t you commit suicide since you have nothing to live for?” Not believing in the afterlife does not mean this life is not worth living.
Case Study Two
Theists are sometimes asked by atheists “Would you be as delusional if you did not believe in God?” The word “delusional” implies a mental illness, and this does not necessarily follow from belief in a god.
Case Study Three
Theists sometimes ask atheists the more rhetorical question “You hate God since you want to continue in your sin, right?” This wrongly assumes it is possible to hate something you don’t believe in, that you believe in the concept of sin, that you believe you are sinning, and that you hate god due to your choice of a sinful life.
Keep in mind that a fallacious argument does not entail an erroneous position.
