Poisoning The Well: Fallacy

One Fallacy that was discussed with my group this past Tuesday was that of "Poisoning The Well". To "Poison The Well" is when one presents an argument with either a biased opinion or in a very strong emotional manner that's impossible for those listening to respond without appearing to be immoral/dishonest. This type of fallacy may also include personal attacks and is actually (more often than not) used as a distraction to draw away from the real point of an issue. One example, my group was able to come up with is that we as Latter-Day Saints have missionaries that serve for either 18-24 months all over the world. One way many sister and elder missionaries encounter the fallacy of "poisoning the well" is when they go proselyting and encounter people who have already established beliefs of what mormons are all about so by the time the missionaries teach them they are already very skeptical about what they are telling them. To be more specific, when teaching non-members about the church many have heard from others that because we don't believe in the trinity we are not Christian. When that is actually not true at all. The name of our church clearly states "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints". Christ is the foundation of our beliefs. The very act of accusing us of not believing in Christ in this case can represent the ignorance and biased opinion one may have due to the “poison” that has entered their well. 

I, myself, plan to serve as a sister missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints this coming April so being aware that this fallacy does indeed occur (and it occurs quite often) when serving a full time mission will help me be able to better prepare when the time comes. I know that this opinion that will be shared by non LDS members will be a mere reflection of how their biased opinion has been infected by those around them. 

Moreover, there has been a time when I have had to encounter a fallacy towards the Church. My freshman year of High School I was accused for being a bad mormon because I wore jeans and make-up. My classmate then went on to explain how I clearly was not going to go to Heaven since it was against my religion to wear pants and make-up yet there I was in class with both jeans and make-up. Shocked, I laughed and told him that whomever had told him that was wrong. I mean, I have been a member my entire life and I had never heard of such a thing begin against any of God’ commandments. It was clear to me that these dour years of high school were going to be rather interesting one since Kingsburg (the small town I’m from) is very anti-mormon. There were going to be many wells that had probably been poisoned by either church leaders or parents. Though, I did encounter some weird accusations it was very humbling to be able to take that “poison” out of my classmates minds and explain our true beliefs.