| Red-emma, I congratulate you on being able to withstand that kind of emotional onslaught at fifteen (assuming that you went through this before April). You've probably already done it, but if you haven't you may want to go to the Volcanvo home page and use the link to logical fallacies. Download it, print it out and quote it back to them whenever you see them pulling one of these.
One of the most used techniques by "true believers" of any stripe, next after emotional shock, is the swarm of dramatic lies. The idea is that unless everyone in the audience tracks them down and refutes them, at least some of the listeners will believe them. And, it's much more work to prove them false than it is to spout them.
A variation of this is making statements in areas beyond the knowledge of the audience. Telling teen-agers about quirks in orbital mechanics or astro-physics is really cheating. They would never even try to do that among a group of PhDs in the field because they would be instantly nailed.
Congratulations again, and keep up the good work.
Occam |