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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 03:18 pm (UTC)No, it's merely something that you have chosen to believe is true, despite oodles of contradictory evidence.
You're not trying to describe this man as a bad Christian, you're trying to remove him from the ranks of "Christian" altogether.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-31 06:25 pm (UTC)No, it's merely something that you have chosen to believe is true, despite oodles of contradictory evidence. "
I'm intrigued as to what these oodles of contradictory evidence consist of. The only evidence that seems relevant to me is the teachings in question. If the teachings condone murder, then a person living by the teachings may commit murder. If the teachings condemn murder, than a person living by the teachings may *not* commit murder, and thus anyone claiming to live by the teachings while also committing murder is either mistaken about the content of the teachings, or a hypocrite (a particular sub-species of liar), or delusional.
So the argument boils down to this: What do the teachings of Christ in fact say about committing murder (either specifically in his name, or more generally)?
Someone else has commented on the difficulty of establishing (a) whether there ever was such a person and (b) if so, what specifically he taught, as opposed to what was attributed to him later. This is a problem that applies to a greater or lesser extent to any other teacher in history of course (though currently much less so to, say, Richard Feynman than to Aristotle), but if for the sake of argument we assume the most widely accepted definition of the phrase "the teachings of Christ" - i.e. the teachings as recorded in the four gospels known as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as found in any mainstream translation of the New Testament (or if you prefer, as found in the Koine Greek of the earliest sources)... Do you then still have a problem with Zander's assertion?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-13 12:15 pm (UTC)========================================
Yes, of course I still have a problem with the assertion. The assertion is, effectively, that one is only a Christian if they consistently live in a Christlike manner. However, since Christ himself said* that all men are sinners, the logic being used says that there are no Christians anywhere.
* Well, it says it in the Bible, which is allegedly the divinely inspired word of god, and so I suppose that Trinitarians believe that Christ said it directly.
For the non-Trinitarians in the audience, Jesus directy said a lot of things that I imagine aren't true of everyone who calls himself a Christian. Ever been worried about where your next meal is coming from? Well then whoops; you're not a Christian, 'cuz the man instructed you to "not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'" For that matter, have you ever lain awake at night fretting about what the next day might bring? You were violating the words that instructed you to "do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." (all quotes ESV)
It's pretty much a fundamental Biblical doctrine that all men are sinners. By definition that includes all men who call themselves Christian. To say that the people who commit *this* particular sin which one finds particularly heinous aren't *really* Christians because Christians don't do that is a classic example of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-13 02:18 pm (UTC)For convenience, here's the quote again:
""The assertion that no-one who [...] lives [...] by the teaching of
> Christ would choose to commit wholesale murder in his name is [...]
> accurate"
no subject
Date: 2011-08-13 02:44 pm (UTC)The problem is that many people have committed murders in Christ's name while remaining completely true to the teachings of Christ as they understood those teachings.
I have a degree in literary theory; I know well how extraordinarily easy it is to tease alternate meanings out of text if one wants to, or to find meanings that suit one's preconceived notions.
My husband tells me that in one of his honors English classes in high school, two students did a brilliant presentation explaining how John Lennon's song Imagine showed Lennon's support for the Vietnam War.
There is no One True "teaching of Christ"*, if indeed such a person ever existed. There are only countless interpretations of what he really meant. Ever seen the movie Life of Brian?
* And there's a whole lot more to be said on that subject, but this doesn't seem to be the place for it.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-13 03:29 pm (UTC)[NODS & GRINS] ...And I'm a guy who stills considers himself an Evangelical, despite having completely reversed his understanding of various bits of the Bible from (a) the mainstream Evangelical view and (b) the view he himself held when he first took up that label. =:o}
Yep. Biblical interpretation is a minefield. And that's something most of the teachers at *every variety* of church I've been in have been at pains to point out, while firmly stating what their specific view was, detailing why they thought it was right, and even (on occasion), opining on just how mad those other people down the road must be to believe *their* crazy version... =:o?
(Edited to removed the bit where I had capslock on [BLUSH])