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avevale_intelligencerLast night, in response to a friend who linked to the Wikipedia article on the "no true Scotsman" fallacy in connection with the terrorism in Norway (apparently perpetrated by someone who is described as a "conservative Christian"), I posted this:
"A Scotsman is a person of Scottish extraction; no more, no less. One can be a Scotsman and be anything. One cannot be a Christian and, say, worship Kali, or Cthulhu. Someone who describes himself as a Christian and worships Cthulhu or Kali, or commits acts of terrorism, or does something else incompatible with the teachings of Christ, is therefore by definition no true Christian, and the fallacy is not a fallacy. Q.E.D."
I should not have done that there, and I apologised this morning, but I think (I hope) that I've successfully demonstrated that the NTS fallacy does not apply here. It doesn't matter if the person who commits an act of terrorism considers himself a Christian, or goes to church, or donates to Christian charities when he's not blowing people up. It doesn't matter if he's dim enough to believe that every word in the Bible is literally true, except when it would stop him blowing people up. It doesn't matter if he has a triple-certified, scrambled, privacy shielded genuine hot line to something that calls itself God, and from whom he got his orders to blow people up. He is not a Christian, because he does not live as a Christian should, and his God is not the Christian God.
I added:
"(Cue long boring derailment discussion about the precise meaning of "I come to set brother against brother" and so on and so interminably forth...)"
because that's usually what happens; having failed to refute my argument, the next step is to prove that Christ actually was a terrorist because he turned over some benches and talked about swords and That Proves It. We then move on to the Inquisition, the Pope's inaction during the rise of Hitler, the fact that he (H) claimed to be a Christian, the oft-trumpeted wrongsayings of the current Catholic establishment and so (as I said) on. None of which affects my argument, and I'm not interested in going through all that again. I know enough Christians who express their faith in their lives to know that the distinction I've made is a valid one, and that the fallacy does not apply in this case.
Not disabling comments. Please don't make me regret it.
"A Scotsman is a person of Scottish extraction; no more, no less. One can be a Scotsman and be anything. One cannot be a Christian and, say, worship Kali, or Cthulhu. Someone who describes himself as a Christian and worships Cthulhu or Kali, or commits acts of terrorism, or does something else incompatible with the teachings of Christ, is therefore by definition no true Christian, and the fallacy is not a fallacy. Q.E.D."
I should not have done that there, and I apologised this morning, but I think (I hope) that I've successfully demonstrated that the NTS fallacy does not apply here. It doesn't matter if the person who commits an act of terrorism considers himself a Christian, or goes to church, or donates to Christian charities when he's not blowing people up. It doesn't matter if he's dim enough to believe that every word in the Bible is literally true, except when it would stop him blowing people up. It doesn't matter if he has a triple-certified, scrambled, privacy shielded genuine hot line to something that calls itself God, and from whom he got his orders to blow people up. He is not a Christian, because he does not live as a Christian should, and his God is not the Christian God.
I added:
"(Cue long boring derailment discussion about the precise meaning of "I come to set brother against brother" and so on and so interminably forth...)"
because that's usually what happens; having failed to refute my argument, the next step is to prove that Christ actually was a terrorist because he turned over some benches and talked about swords and That Proves It. We then move on to the Inquisition, the Pope's inaction during the rise of Hitler, the fact that he (H) claimed to be a Christian, the oft-trumpeted wrongsayings of the current Catholic establishment and so (as I said) on. None of which affects my argument, and I'm not interested in going through all that again. I know enough Christians who express their faith in their lives to know that the distinction I've made is a valid one, and that the fallacy does not apply in this case.
Not disabling comments. Please don't make me regret it.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-24 02:10 pm (UTC)I didn't say it was undetectable. And it doesn't change things. Things are the way they are. Whether it would change your view of things I couldn't say, but I doubt it, since (when you're not arguing with me) your view is much the same as mine. You know there are good Christians as well as I do. You have good Christian friends, and probably good Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu friends.
In fact, you knew what I was going to say in response to all these questions.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-24 03:19 pm (UTC)I didn't say it was undetectable. I agree. That was me that pointed that out. I maintain that whether or not a person is planning an atrocity in the near future (or would support an atrocity if everyone else in the crowd was going along with it, which is a much greater number) is frequently undetectable until the atrocity has actually happened.
Basically my point regarding the second question is, there are two (among many) groups of people: People Who Profess Christianity (PWPC) and People Who Are Actually Good (PWAAG). These groups can overlap, but do not depend on each other. Your claim is that only PWPCWAAG, a subset of both PWPC, and PWAAG, should be considered Christians, and that people who call the shooter Christian are badmouthing PWPCWAAG. My claim is using Christian as shorthand for PWPC is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, especially since PWPC is detectable and PWAAG is not, or at least not reliably. And furthermore, this is common usage. "Christian" as meaning solely PWPCWAAG generally is invoked only after something like this happens. And the result of skipping back and forth between the two definitions is of course the presumption that PWPC are (unlike non-PWPC) all good until proven otherwise, which I think is unfair.
Furthermore I'm pretty sure almost nobody who uses "Christian" to mean PWPC seriously denies that PWPCWAAG actually exist (I certainly don't, and didn't in my previous replies, and don't understand what made you think I did), so your ardent defense is unnecessary, and indeed, to the degree it implies that someone in particular actually holds that silly position, both unkind and impolite.