When a claim has been shown to be false, instead of admitting that it is false, a person will post-rationalize a reason why what they thought to be true must remain to be true. They fall for the fallacy of moving the goalposts after the opponent has scored.

A lot of people use that particular fallacy. SusieQ just recently used it on me. :)

To bring on topic, it is what apologetics is all about.

The subtle semantic shifting of word meanings is maddening. We have all phrased something badly, but making up meanings for words or even worse, claiming your words were not understood with no further explanation is just,as you say, moving the goal posts.

We all have access to the dictionary.

I thought no one would top the famous phrase, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." However I have seen some good candidates for taking that trophy lately.

Yes, I am referring specifically to apologetics. Redefining words is a good example.

Look at the Book of Abraham translation. Now that it has been proven to be a fraud, you have people now redefining the word "translation".

Another example of moving the goalposts is the Mormon claim about Native Americans. Now that DNA and archeology has shown that Native Americans are not descendents of Lamanites from the Book of Mormon, they have changed their position and say that Lamanites are 'among' the ancestors of the Native Americans, in a very small, local, isolated, undetected group. The goalposts have been moved so far away from the stadium that you can't even see it anymore.

I find, after much pondering and prayer, that although your post SEEMS to be about moving goalposts, the still, small voice informs me that it actually is a record of Father Abraham in Egypt, hangin' out with Pharoah and talkin' 'bout astronomy & stuff.