Point Out Errors In Reasoning
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Hasty generalization. You’re taking too small of a sample size and extrapolating it out to a big group. I do that. We all tend to do that. We’ll say, “Man, I bought a Nissan, it broke down on me four times. I will never buy another Nissan ever again. They’re all junk.” Hasty generalization. Too small of a sample size. I’ve only had one Nissan. It broke down, okay, but that doesn’t mean all Nissans break down. That’s a hasty generalization.
Genetic fallacy. When you condemn an argument because of where it began, how it began, or who began it. We like to do this in the political realm. We do it in the religious realm, too. “We can’t trust them, they’re an atheist.”
“All atheists are fools, they have no truth.”
Political realm. “Oh, that’s a right wing, conservative nut job.”
“Oh, they’re a liberal, crazy person. You can’t trust them.” That’s genetic fallacy. You got to listen to their argument and break down their argument. My friends actually sent this to me. My friends. I teach logic. I teach critical thinking and they sent, “Thinks a ban on guns will save lives, dies from a heroin overdose.” The genetic fallacy here is that dying from a drug overdose doesn’t make a person’s argument wrong. You see that, right? Just because a guy is a drug addict doesn’t mean his argument on gun control is wrong. It may be wrong, it may not be wrong. It has nothing to do with him being an addict. That’s a genetic fallacy. Genetic fallacies are all over internet memes. Watch for them, they’re fun.
All right. I usually show you some of mine, it looks like we’re winding down a bit. I get a lot of problematic statements like this guy telling me he’ll let me know when he uses logic. It’s very derogatory, but what are you doing if you’re not using logic? Genetic fallacies. You’re an apologist, therefore you’ll twist the truth. He’s saying, “I can’t know truth because I’m a Christian apologist.” That’s a genetic fallacy. You’ll get that. “Well, you’re a Christian. Therefore, whatever comes next…” Genetic fallacy. That’s a problem.
By the way, I told that guy, because he attacked me being a Christian apologist and I knew it was a genetic fallacy, I had a little fun with him and I said, “Dang it. Maybe I should have been a Jedi. Everyone knows all Jedis are honest.” Wait. And he said, “I’ve not put you down for your beliefs, but I’ve suggested that Christian apologists are liars and twist the truth.”
Our society’s very confused. There’s the cocooned one. “Sad, diluted mind that can believe in this ancient, primitive, caveman blood magic.” This is stuff I get on my blog and Facebook page. That’s a straw man. It’s easier to attack the Christian faith when you reduce it to blood magic, ancient, primitive, blood magic, and not the deep philosophy that explains the universe as we know it.
Either-or fallacies. Creating situations where God has to be this or that, but not really considering a third alternative, like, “A God being wouldn’t necessarily hold the same traits and qualities the way a created being would. God would be perfectly free, so what does that mean for moral perfection?” Creating an either-or situation.
This is the last one I want to show, and I know I’ve done these fast. This is why you guys need to be good reasoners. Read this. I’m not going to read it through, but our society’s screaming back at Christians, “No, not religion, not magic, not the sky daddy, not the Jewish zombie. Logic, evidence, reason,” and then they violate that in the very same sentence that they’re crying for logic.
Look. This is on an atheist blog called Raising My Kids Without God. “I want our government to make decisions based on what is logical, just, and fair, not on what they believe an imaginary God wants.” I want logic, but I’m not going to use it in my very own sentence, I’m going to attack you. The confusion, the people who are screaming, “We have logic and reason on our side,” don’t care to use it much. That’s why you need to be good reasoners. That’s why they reject the gospel. You make a good argument, they don’t care. They outright reject it because it logic’s whatever they want it to be. How far has relativism gone? All the way. It’s gone all the way. It’s taken over their minds. They don’t even know how to reason well.
Lt me re leave you with you need to start pointing out people’s errors and reasoning. You need to, but practice using the fallacies as an outworking of love and not as a means of self-affirmation. If you use this stuff to build up your own ego and pride, it will destroy you over time. This is out of love for the person, out of ministering to them.
Internal Logical Fallacies. If you haven’t already gotten this book, this is a great book. It’s good for anybody who wants to learn these errors in reasoning. Each chapter will quiz you over them so that you don’t just learn them, but you learn to recognize them. Fabulous. Start using them right away. It’s on your paper so I’m going to skip ahead.
My study has a section on fallacies, my Why Do You Believe That? Here’s my actual conclusion so that you all can come up and get going on your awesome outing. Jesus said he was the truth. That’s what he calls himself. John 14:6, “I’m the way, the truth, and life.” When asked how to get to heaven, he says, “Me. I’m the truth,” so remember that poor reasoning leads you away from truth. God gave you a rational mind, he gave you laws of logic so that you could know him. Not fully. Again, there are other ways of knowing God, but there is definitely the way through the rational mind and he gave that to you as a gift, so we got to use it. We have to be good reasoners.
Remember your fallen nature corrupts your thinking as well. People get into this idea that their thoughts are not corrupted, that there’s some kind of pure mental activity going on there. That is not true. It’s why you need each other. It’s why you need summit. It’s why you need people who will hold you accountable for your beliefs and challenge you, because your thinking is corrupted as well.
Finally, we should be modelers of how to thoughtfully engage in arguments with integrity as ambassadors for Christ. Guys, seek the truth, don’t seek your own comfort. Thank you.
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