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Definition
a person who argues to defend or justify some policy or institution- Reformed epistemology asserts that certain beliefs cannot be proven by reason but must be accepted by faith, and Christian philosophers and apologists such as Alvin Plantinga have proposed that beliefs of this type are "properly basic" — that is, that they are reasonably and even necessarily held without evidentiary support.Faith and rationality - Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_and_rationality (retrieved 05/20/06)
- Christian apologist William Lane Craig aptly styled it atheism's killer argument.Atheism - Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist (retrieved 05/20/06)
- The theologians, the apologists, and their kin the metaphysicians, the high-handed statesmen, and others, no longer interest me.Thomas Hardy -- Jude the Obscure
- Even more important, they began to question the logic of the Southern apologists for slavery.Ann Petry -- Harriet Tubman
- Now the man took the role of apologist.Dave Eggers -- The Circle
- Both Gant and Eliza were fluent apologists for economic independence: all the boys had been sent out to earn money at a very early age.Thomas Wolfe -- Look Homeward, Angel
- A certain amount of perversity was to be allowed for in a young lady whose lover had thrown her over; but not such an amount as would prove inconvenient to his apologists.Henry James -- Washington Square
- English youth have been so educated time out of mind, and we have hundreds of thousands of apologists and admirers of injustice, misery, and brutality, as perpetrated among children.William Makepeace Thackeray -- Vanity Fair
- Apologists for slavery at the time often described benevolent farming operations in the West Indies, indulgently caring for slaves' every need, but Clarkson's evidence proved that conditions were often revolting.Nicholas D. Kristof -- Half the Sky
- Now is there civil war within the soul: Resolve is thrust from off the sacred throne By clamorous Needs, and Pride the grand-vizier Makes humble compact, plays the supple part Of envoy and deft-tongued apologist For hungry rebels.George Eliot -- Middlemarch
- For his action, the Governor was burned in effigy, excluded from customary ceremonies such as parades and commencements, and assaulted daily in the press with such epithets as "anarchist," "socialist," "apologist for murder" and "fomenter of lawlessness."John F. Kennedy -- Profiles in Courage
- He was, thus, an example of that sad liberalism of the village—an advanced thinker among the Methodists, a bearer of the torch at noon, an apologist for the toleration of ideas that have been established for fifty years.Thomas Wolfe -- Look Homeward, Angel