Bad apologetics

Apologetics is the field of trying to come up rational answers for faith. The notion seems somewhat contradictory, as if something taken on faith cannot be objectively provable. Otherwise, it's not faith.

That aside, there are good answers and bad ones. Oftentimes, bad answers are held as good ones. 

Likewise, I categorize the field of apologetics to various sub-components, which have different levels of quality of answers. The answers are bad because the premise it seeks to prove is wrong.

The absolute worst field is Young Earth Creationism. The arguments made are just plain awful and belief is entirely an act of faith, not reason.

The absolute worst I have ever heard was that is that Big Bang Cosmology cannot explain why galaxies exist that display either a clockwise rotation or counterclockwise rotation. The thinking went that the rotation of the galaxies should all be in the same manner.

A five year old can see the problem with this reasoning. Whether galaxy exhibits a counterclockwise or clockwise rotation is a question of perspective. It depends entirely if the observer looks at it from above the plane or below it. 

Case in point, rotate your hand with your palm open. When your thumb is pointed away from your body, it exhibits a clockwise orientation with regard to the other fingers. Now, rotate your hand so the thumb is pointed to your body, and now it exhibits a counterclockwise rotation as to the other fingers. This happens because you're viewing your own hand from different perspectives when you rotate it around.

This is not a complicated explanation. But if your faith requires that the earth is young, then you will overlook the nonsense and publish bad explanations.

Slightly better, but still bad, is apologetics for Biblical Inerrancy. Again, the answers are bad because the premise is bad.

The best form of apologetics is probably the forms rooted in the early church. That too, has limits.

The best reason for belief in God is rooted in actual experience. That's why I believe in God and count myself a Christian. Since my belief is not grounded in a tight hold of the Bible or a young earth, I can critique those and not lose my faith.