[js1138]

Religious apologetics is the effort to show that the preferred faith is not irrational, that believing in it is not against human reason, and that in fact the religion contains values and promotes ways of life more in accord with human nature than other faiths or beliefs.

No problem when stated this way.

The pejorative sense of the word comes from defending the indefensible.

The threatened torture of Galileo, for example. Or the Inquisition. Or opposition to science in general.

[Kevmo]

I can prove to you that I never threatened torture of Galileo, , or was involved in the Inquisition, nor shown opposition to science in general. ;-)

Now, I have had a few choice words I would have said to the person who developed Differential Equations, but we don’t need to go there.