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The rules of logic are like the rules of mathematics or physics, they are not opinions that can be disregarded, they have always existed, and they follow a structure that God set up, he is a rational God, a God of order, and not confusion. For instance, it is not illogical in and of itself to believe in the supernatural, but if you have to break a dozen rules of logic while reviewing the evidence in order to support a single occurrence of the supernatural, then it is not spiritual or faithful to continue to believe that event occurred, rather, it is obtuse.
The existence of God, the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the authenticity of scripture are all Christian elements that face much opposition and doubt in the secular world. But, while none of these things can be proven deductively from empirical data, all of them have a substantial base of inductive data which stands up to logical scrutiny, and is used regularly in debates between Christian apologists and atheists, for instance. In the end, no amount of inductive evidence is going to cause a conversion, as it is a work from God that brings the ultimate revelation, but a Christian does not have to suspend logic or reason to arrive at that place of faith. God does not break his own rules.
It is not possible to support an inherently false position however, without breaking the rules of logic and reason, by committing a logical fallacy. An encyclopedia of logical fallacies could be filled each week by reviewing the sermons of prominent message ministers. Their position cannot be supported logically, or from scripture, so they resort to any number of logical fallacies to keep their congregations in the dark. Here are a few favorites of message ministers:
- 1. Ad hominem – attempts to counter an opponent’s claims by attacking the opponent, rather than addressing the argument itself. “poisoning the well” is a form of ad hominem.
- “you watch, its these carnal, spiritual babies, that couldn’t get the pastor to do what they wanted, it’s them that’s out there attacking the word of the hour. Don’t you lend an ear to that garbage!” (not only is this a logical fallacy that addresses none of the issues that have been raised, but also lumps all ex message believers into a very narrow, very negative stereotype that is, by its very generality, reckless, irresponsible, and false.)
- 2. False dilemma or False dichotomy – Artificially reducing a set of possibilities to two, usually while casting one of the two in such a negative light that the “obvious” choice is the other one.
- “There, you see all of these contradictions in the Bible. I can’t explain them, can you? So are going to throw your Bible away? If you’re going to leave the message over something like that, just go ahead and throw your Bible away.” (This is a manipulative favorite when speaking to bible believing Christians. The pastor knows they believe the Bible and aren’t going to throw it away, therefore many will make a decision that they are also, not going to leave the message, for no reason at all! The contradictions in the Bible can and have been logically explained, while many questions about the message cannot.)
- 3. Reductio ad absurdum – reducing the premises in an argument so that it leads to an absurd conclusion.
- “You don’t believe it because you didn’t see it? Well, in that case, you don’t have proof that you have a brain, and certainly don’t have proof that there is a God!” (the premise has been artificially reduced to ‘you don’t believe because you didn’t see it’. In reality there is a mountain of inductive evidence for the existence of your brain and God, and a mountain of inductive evidence to refute many message claims.)
- 4. Straw Man – attempts to counter a position by attacking a different position than the one his opponent actually holds, one that is easier to refute.
- “These people attacking the message would have you believe that you should go back to the harlot… back to the denominational slop you come out of.” (This is not the position of any message critic that I am aware of. The message is simply that you are following a false prophet and therefore are in a false system. Where you go from there is a matter of prayerful consideration, and is inherently individual. Btw, equating all churches with harlots and slop for the simple fact that they belong to a denomination is also fallacious, in case common sense didn’t kick in there automatically, as it should )
- 5. Slippery Slope – argues that to accept A means that you must accept B, or Z, or some other extreme.
- “You go clicking around on them websites and listening to the devil’s lies, you might just find yourself being an enemy of God, stuck with no way back.” (…… do I really have to explain why this is stupid? Which fallacy do I address first, the illogical connection between looking at a website and being an enemy of God, or the assertion that a website contains the “devil’s lies” without a single shred of evidence to back up such a monstrous claim.)
- 6. Moving Goalpost – the method of moving the criteria for “proof” out of the range of whatever evidence currently exists. If new evidence comes to light meeting the prior criteria, the goalpost is pushed further back. Sometimes impossible criteria are set up at the start for the purpose of denying an undesirable conclusion.
- “You weren’t there when the cloud happened, so you don’t know how it happened.” (Since we can’t go back in time and “be there” there is no possible way to prove it didn’t happen as William Branham said, though the evidence in this particular case is so strong, you could actually argue not only for an overwhelming inductive case, but also for an empirical, deductive refutation of his claim, because of the law of non-contradiction)
These are but a few logical fallacies, and nearly all I have seen have been implemented over the last several months by message ministers in a desperate attempt at a defense.
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