Thomas Kelly252525 Wrote:LadyForCamus Wrote:Wtf is this guy talking about?!
LadyForCamus,
If someone said to you that someone isn't a Christian and then you worked to use The No True Scotsman Fallacy to show them how you think they were wrong to say that and then later you looked at the words in 1 john 4:1, do you think you would judge yourself wrong for working to prove what you wanted by The No True Scotsman Fallacy ?
If someone says they are a Christian, I'll take their word for it. If they then say they don't believe Jesus was really the Son of God and they accept the theory of evolution as written; I might privately think 'Christian deist' might be a more exact definition, but I wouldn't challenge them on it. Christianity is a pretty big umbrella. If they said the Bible is complete fiction and Brahma is the true God, I might think they have mental problems.
The heart of the NTS is that a Scotsman is a male born in or inhabiting Scotland, or at least of Scottish descent. If you generalize about Scotsmen not putting sugar on their porridge and someone says, hey wait, Donald McGillicutty in Glasgow is a Scotsman and HE puts sugar on his porridge, and then your response is that Donald isn't a true Scotsman; you're presenting an ad hoc rationalization for rejecting the counterfactual. So it's a combination of overgeneralizing followed by ad hocery when the exceptions to your rule are pointed out. Donald is disqualified from being a true Scotsman solely because he doesn't follow the rule you claim Scotsmen follow.
The word 'Christian' has a definition. If you make a generalization about Christians and the exception to your rule doesn't fit any part of it, then you're not making the NTS if you point out the individual isn't actually a Christian and so the rule not applying to them doesn't invalidate the rule. The better the Christian fits the definition, the more the NTS comes into play if you attempt to disqualify the exception as not being a true Christian, especially if your main motivation for disqualifying him as a Christian is that he doesn't conform to the claim you made.
A: Christians believe in Jesus Christ and his teachings.
B: Sheila doesn't and Sheila is a Christian!
A: All TRUE Christians believe in Jesus Christ and his teachings!
The above is not an example of the NTS. If the claim about Scotsmen had been about where they're from instead of what they eat, it wouldn't be the NTS to say no true Scotsman about someone from Barbados with no Scottish ancestry.
A: Christians have nothing but love in their hearts for the less fortunate.
B: Ralph could give a crap about the unfortunate and he's a Christian!
A: All TRUE Christians have nothing but love in their hearts for the less fortunate.
This is a borderline case. Clearly A is using a special definition of Christians that not only believe in Jesus Christ and his teaching but are completely successful in incorporating the love doctrine into their personas. This isn't necessarily wrong, but if you weren't explicit about your special definition in the beginning; you're still wrong in your claim. The best way to save yourself is to apologize about not being clearer and explain what you mean instead of acting like it should have been obvious that Christians who don't follow your rule don't even count as Christians.
A: Christians love church picnics.
B: Lillie is a Christian and she hates church picnics!
A: All TRUE Christians love church picnics!
This is a clear NTS. Enjoying church picnics has nothing to do with any reasonable definition of Christian. There's nothing in the definition or the Bible about church picnics. Hopefully, A isn't being serious.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
