Scotsmen

[avevale_intelligencer]

Last 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.

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

All this assumes that there actually was a person called Jesus Christ (actually, if he existed at all, he was Yesua bar Yosef or a variant depending on transliteration) and that the current Gospels actually record what he said (even more doubtful, as there are other Jewish - and other sources - saying much the same thing) and that those churches which call themselves 'Christian' - a word he could never have used - actually follow those teachings.

Also, I think you have misunderstood the 'No true Scotsman' fallacy. However, I am not going to argue about it. (Though I have met a lot of Irish people who maintain that people who have lived in Ireland for hundreds of years are not 'Irish'.)

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

Of course, a complication to the picture is the fact that many such descriptors as 'Christian' depend on self-classification. I describe myself as American (but if I gave up my passport, would I still be American?), British (I have a passport to prove it - but is that enough?), a Minnesotan (although I haven't lived there for 14 years, does that mean I can't be?). Despite the fact that they all seem evident to me, they could all be argued by others. Am I a vegetarian if I only eat meat on rare occasions? If I called myself a Rastafarian, would that make me one?

I'm not arguing with you - just expressing some of my own thoughts that were generated by the same post.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Your argument appears to me to boil down to "but it's different for Christians; Christians really are good!"

So my first question would be how far do you extend that presumption of goodness? Is it the case that Muslims really are good? That Buddhists really are good? That Hindus really are good? That Atheists really are good?

And my second question is this--given that to be Christian (Religious?) you have to be so good you won't commit or support atrocities even if the rest of the crowd is doing it (so we toss out the Inquisition, as I presume you would wish) how do we tell the Real Christians (Religionists?), whom I gather we should trust, respect, and defer to, from those scoundrels who merely profess Christianity (Religion?) but will, some years down the road, commit or support an atrocity, like those (presumably not True?) Muslims sprinkling rose petals over the one of their number who murdered some politician for being insufficiently supportive of Islam?

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

You spend a lot of time explaining why the "no true Scotsman" fallacy doesn't apply to certain groups, and every time, you're wrong.

You consistently miss the point of the fallacy completely, while demonstrating it beautifully.

[howeird]

I tend to agree. The only thing keeping me from standing up and cheering your post is the question of whether someone else is qualified to say what faith/religion another person follows.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I agree with your other commenters here.

People interpret 'Christian beliefs' very differently from one another, and I don't think anyone gets to say 'if you believe that you're not a Christian', and non-Christians certainly don't get to say it.

Making a judgment that someone shouldn't use a particular word to describe themselves is really ... extreme? invasive? Not something ever to be done lightly, and arguably not something to be done at all. I would argue 'not something to be done at all' when it comes to a word as open to different interpretations as 'Christian'.

I know Christians who don't believe in God, Christians who worship pagan deities, Christians who believe they have a duty to take violent revenge when someone wrongs them, Christians who believe it's a sin to forbid same sex couples from marrying, Christians who believe it's a sin to allow them to marry.

There are Christians who believe that the 'teachings of Jesus' are what they have to live by; Christians who believe that the teachings of St Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are equally important; Christians who believe they should live by what they think the Holy Spirit is telling them personally; Christians who think they should obey [some] old testament laws; Christians who think that their own reason was implanted in them as a sovereign guide to right and wrong.

Some of these positions I agree with, some are (in my opinion) profoundly anti-Christian. But I don't get to judge whether the people who hold them are Christians, any more than other people get to judge whether I'm a Christian.


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.

I'm glad you know some 'good' Christians. So do I, and I try to be one too. But I also know plenty of Christians who are utterly obnoxious, or who believe things I think are repellent, or both. They're still Christians. Some of them are Christians who have a lot to teach me about being Christian.

Plus, as I said above, I don't know a single person who follows the teachings of Jesus perfectly. And neither you, nor me, nor anyone gets to draw the line between sins that stop you being a Christian and sins that don't.

The church (by which I mean the community of all Christians) would be gravely at fault if we didn't acknowledge Christians who commit atrocities in Christ's name, and consider carefully what our role was in helping them to happen and what we need to do to prevent them from happening in the future.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

http://christianrethinker.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/no-true-christian-no-true-scotsman/

Interesting fact: if you Google "no true Scotsman" (well, I use Startpage, but the idea's the same) almost all the entries that are not simple definitions link to atheist sites bemoaning the supposed use of this fallacy by "Christian apologists," in whose number I hope nobody is going to include me. This was about the only instance I could find of a Christian writer mentioning it. Nobody else cares.

And that's my lot for this thread. Night all.