Logic and the Message

Blind Faith Anti-Intellectualism Logic and the Message

Don't confuse the issue with facts! The rules of logic are like the rules of mathematics or physics. One plus one equals two, and a lie cannot be part of the truth. These rules follow a rational structure because God designed the universe to have a rational structure. Likewise, a Christian does not have to suspend logic or reason to arrive at a position of faith. Rather, logic or reason are often the reason for faith. For example, Message Believers believe faithfully in a man they consider to be a vindicated prophet. But take away the proof of vindication (or the reason for faith) and faith begins to crumble. Listed below are a number of statements that have been made about this website, each of which is an illogical attack. Most of these statements were made by ministers to keep their congregations in the dark. 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. 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. Reductio ad absurdum Reducing the premise 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. 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. By the way, 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. 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? 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. The law of non-contradiction means that two opposite statements cannot both be true at the same time and in the same sense. Nothing that is true can be self-contradictory or inconsistent with any other truth. All logic depends on this simple principle. Scripture very clearly affirms the law of non-contradiction. John 2:21 - No lie is of the truth. 2 Timothy 2:13 - He (God) cannot deny himself. Titus 1:2 - God . . . cannot lie. Therefore even God's Word must be in harmony with the law of non-contradiction. While there can be truth in a lie, there can be no lie in the truth. The Red Herring Click here to see our video on this logical fallacy.