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OK, this is how pathetic I am. It is 12:08am where I am and this is keeping me up at night. Here is the cognitive dissonance I'm experiencing. On the one hand as a man of reason if something is said to be a Fallacy I feel compelled to accept it. On the other hand as a man of Faith--reasoned spiritual development--I've never encountered a Fallacy that suggests belief is a simple dichotomy. The typical Fallacies I've encountered have typically centered around how an argument is formed, how an argument is addressed, the proper forms of argumentation. I've never encountered a Fallacy that was specifically aimed at one particular argument. Now, my instinct is just to reject it as a valid Fallacy. However, that is a typical reaction of cognitive dissonance. I am not satisfied with that.
Now, I will be honest I do find this Fallacy a little suspicious. The reason I find it suspicious is because of who developed it, the period of time he developed it and why he developed it. Here is the wikipedia article about the person:
Now, I find it suspicious because he is not a major philosopher. I also find it suspicious because I believe he fits into post-modernism which has a tendency to reinvent truth instead of search for it. I also find it suspicious because he is English but he portrays it as, "No True Scotsman," which if you know the politics of the region may give you insight into his own biases. I also find it suspicious that wikipedia, if it is correct, has him believing in an Aristotelian God in the end of his life. Well, Aristotle is not really known for his concern for God. I'm not indicating that he may not have had some beliefs regarding God but his primary works tend to deal with the material world and not the more metaphysical world.
Now, those are my suspicions of this Fallacy. However, after reading the OP's initial post and some of the following posts I do believe it does have some value. It has value in the sense that as a Christian you should embrace other Christians with acceptable flaws and help in their spiritual development. By acceptable flaws, I mean no mortal sins--killing, rape, pedophilia...etc...The reaction to minor flaws should not be, "well you are not a true Christian, you are making us look bad to the atheist and other Christians for having those flaws so get out of my church." As a criticism to how some Christians react I find it valid but that is not how all Christians react. Also, it is valuable in the fact that what plagues the atheist mind and some Christian minds is a need for literalness. In fact, I'm going to perfectly honest when I was reading about this Fallacy I figuratively could feel my mind close; generally reason, logic, rationality figuratively makes my mind feel open.
So, in the Timothy McVay example I kept emphasizing he is literally an American but the subtle reality is that we as Americans tends to have a subtle, nuanced, unspoken expectation of what we find American behavior. So, if Timothy McVay protested, started a political party, ran for office to make a statement about America we would find that acceptable; we don't find terrorism acceptable. The problem with this Fallacy is that it requires a narrow literalness to real life i.e. I have to ignore many things to accept one literal thing. So, the Irony is that this particular Fallacy that is essentially atheist requires a sense of Fundamentalism to hold true thereby being guilty of its own criticism.
Now, I'll complicated it. Suppose a politician was elected as part of the Independent party. The reason people voted him in is because there are certain expectations how an Independent votes to best represent their beliefs. Supposing as soon as he got in he voted completely against anything that would be universally accepted by an Independent platform. Well, then it would be a valid criticism for his constituents to say, "He is not a True Independent." Under this Fallacy he could always say, "the name tag literally says Independent so I'm Independent no matter how I vote." To me that is absurd in the logical sense.
So, to be honest...I like my original response but with qualifications. Ahhhhhh, now I can get to sleep.
The point is that "Christian" doesn't have a 1,000 page definition... and no one has a right to say what a "true" one is, simply because that might be what they want one to be. Even if the No True Scotsman Fallacy applies retroactively as supposed by Paul, then that would mean that nothing which is currently the make-up of a Christian, actually makes someone a Christian. Christians would have to wait until they died, to find out if they were ever Christian. Labels usually just mean that you wear them. Most people tell you it is "easy" to convert to Christianity, you only have to... So is that wrong? Are there actually a lot of laws and requirements?
A true Scotsman is a Scotsman,
That which isn't a True Scotsman isn't a Scotsman.
so a Scotsman is also a true Scotsman.
Last edited by LuminousTruth; 07-31-2014 at 02:49 AM..
Now, I'll complicated it. Suppose a politician was elected as part of the Independent party. The reason people voted him in is because there are certain expectations how an Independent votes to best represent their beliefs. Supposing as soon as he got in he voted completely against anything that would be universally accepted by an Independent platform. Well, then it would be a valid criticism for his constituents to say, "He is not a True Independent." Under this Fallacy he could always say, "the name tag literally says Independent so I'm Independent no matter how I vote." To me that is absurd in the logical sense.
What makes Christianity and a political party somewhat different from each other is that there aren't over 20,000 different "flavors" of being an Independent, but there -are- over 20,000 Christian denominations, factions, sects, cults, and organizations.
I know most Christians like to think of their belief as exceedingly narrow. Pray like this, believe in that, interpret the Bible in this way, and everything else is simply non-Christian. For an atheist, however, many just think a belief in Christ the Resurrected Messiah is enough to be pegged as a Christian - the details are irrelevant.
Therefore, even if you rape and murder - or even orchestrate an inquisition - as long as you still believe in Christ the Resurrected Messiah, you're still a Christian. It is one's BELIEF that makes them Christian, not necessarily their actions. One simply can't make the claim, "Oh, well, he committed a crime therefore he's not a 'true' Christian."
Of course, it's also not fair to link a person's religious belief with their crimes if their religion had nothing to do with the criminal act. No conclusions -at all- can be gained from putting two independent variables (religious belief and criminal act) together and forcing a link - and some atheists are guilty of doing that.
However, if there -is- a link, such as the criminal committing atrocity in the name of their faith or if the perpetrator is abusing his religious authority to carry out crimes, then other Christians really have no defense; if they claim they weren't 'true' Christians, then we have the No True Scotsman fallacy.
It should be noted, too, that most informal fallacies such as the No True Scotsman are more specific versions of formal fallacies; the specificity of informal fallacies often makes it easier to spot and identify fallacious reasoning. For instance, another informal fallacy that often happens in political/religious debates is the "Argumentum ad Hilerum" fallacy, sometimes jokingly called "Infinitum ad Nazium" fallacy. This happens when someone tries to claim something is wrong merely because Hitler did it. ("We should NOT have welfare in America! Hitler had welfare in Nazi Germany ... do you want to be like the Nazis?"). It's a fallacy because Hitler was also a staunch non-smoker, vegetarian, and loved animals. Are those things wrong?
So you see that there are a lot of very specific informal fallacies that might see odd because they focus on one type of argument; they aren't as broad as formal fallacies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Artifice32
Ahhhhhh, now I can get to sleep.
Join the club. However, keep in mind that if you do fall asleep, you can't 'really' be in the club because no true non-sleeper would ever sleep.
As an additional thought, I would note that the same argument of the "true Christian" was put forth after 9/11 with respect to the terrorists. No "true Muslim" would perform an act of terrorism that killed so many innocent people:
Quote:
Muslims do not murder innocent people
The most obvious reason that the Commission was off-track is that Muslims do not murder innocent people. Some people find this statement outrageous. Of course Muslims murder innocent people, they say, that’s what al Qaeda does.
The problem is that, as a society, many of us have been trained to accept religion as a noncommittal affiliation or label. For example, many of the current U.S. leaders have engaged in mass murder around the world over the last ten years yet they still call themselves Christians. Anyone can see that they are not. Those who truly believe in God live by the laws of the religion they proclaim and Christians do not engage in wars of aggression or the torture and killing of other human beings.
The word “Muslim” is Arabic and literally means “one who submits (to God).” But Webster’s Dictionary defines a “Muslim” as an adherent to Islam. Being an adherent of Islam means to follow the teachings of the Holy Qu’ran. And according to the Qur’an, one of the greatest sins is to kill a human being who has committed no fault:
If someone kills another person – unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the earth – it is as if he had murdered all mankind. (Surat al-Ma’ida: 32)
Artifice 32. i must say I am impressed by how your are wrestling with this matter.
On one hand, it seems obviously false for a Christian to claim that someone who was a perfectly good Christian but then thought about it, lost their faith and ended up another religion or none could never really have been a Real chrisrtian to start with or he (or she) would never have deconverted.
it seems to me that there are two reasons for this:-
(a) polemic, It could imply that there are really no good reasons to give up faith and the only reasons someone does is because they were never Really Christian in the first place. This is a bit flimsy because those who deconverted will say (quite rightly) that they were as good as anyone and believed as strongly and knew all the arguments, and yet they deconverted. Thus (by implication) there are good reasons why they did.
(b) doctrinal. The idea being that one is predestined to be a Christian believer and thus no Christian could even deconvert or God would never have left him without the famous 'hardened heart' so that he could have believed. The solution is to have a sort of half -way house where they may have been interested in the word but were never really one of god's chosen Christians, that is the only way to explain how they fell out of faith. Because no Real Christian could EVER lose faith.
There is also the disowning of any Christian whose behaviour cannot be covered up by prayers and repentance and suffering on their own cross and forgiveness, because it is too damaging to the Church and so they have to be expelled rather. 'He is not a Christian 9tghough he may claim to be) and never Really was. It is damage limitation PR.
Of course I have to consider whether Stalin was a Real atheist or Anthony Flew. The point with Stalin is that his excesses were nothing to do with atheism, but with dictatorship -authority. I might say he was 'No real atheist', but that is more in fun, though I would bar him on the grounds of adherence to irrational dogma. But that's nothing to do with atheism.
Anthony Flew converted to Deism, and I have no desire to say he was never a real atheist. In fact his 'conversion' is a credit to atheism, because he was presented with convincing evidence for God and he accepted it. Just as any Real atheist should if the evidence was good enough. I didn't agree with him at the time (and in fact he was bamboozled by non-science) but I respected his choice.
So it seems to me that the 'No Real Scotsman' fallacy is valid, because it prevents someone evading a serious point raised against their position, by excluding (on invalid grounds, I suggest) any class of subjects that the point applies to.
I think it's more complicated than that. Christianity and other religions exist on a spectrum. Since it's always debated whether it's the ''actual word of God'' or something more vague...the makeup of Christians will reflect that. We could say that a murder is not a Christian largely based on teaches of the Bible. But there are passages where killing is ok and some people can view it as applying to a large set of principles.
The No True Scotsman fallacy applies to Muslims too, they also proclaim that it is easy to convert to Islam. I think it is Five Pillars, or maybe just one proclamation.
Your post represents a perfect example of the complications inherent in the "true Christian" argument. Some Christians believe OSAS (Once Saved, Always Saved - also known as "Assured Salvation") and others do not. How shall an outsider evaluate what is "true Christian" doctrine? And this is only one doctrinal debate among dozens.
The idea that a lapsed Christian could not hzave been a real Christian has more to do with the OSAS fallacy than the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
In a sense, that is correct. The root cause of the NTS fallacy being used in that case is as a tool , a mechanism to protect the doctrine of Eternal Security, but it is still a classic example of the fallacy.This is essentially how it is always used. A Muslim who blows up innocents is NTSed in order protect the assertion that Muslims don't blow up children. An American who believes that Communist is preferable to Capitalism is NTSed in order protect the assertion that Americans are not commies. Essentially "No True Scotsman" is just a formalization of shifting goalposts, usually in a posthoc sort of way to invalidate evidence that disagrees with the initial assertion.
-NoCapo
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