Hi. Today we're talking about fallacies. This will be part two. In the last lesson, I mentioned that if any of us are ever going to be critical thinkers, and hopefully all of us listening are going to be, or already are, it's important that we recognize fallacies when we encounter them. And a fallacy, we said, is a misleading or unsound argument. Sometimes it's dishonest, but often the person using it doesn't realize that they are using a dishonest form of argumentation. They may think it's a sound argument.
Now, the important thing to note is this. Fallacies are very effective as a form of argument. I wish they weren't, but they're untruthful, but they sound convincing. And when they're used effectively, they do tend to persuade most people. So like if I had no integrity and I was teaching you on how to be a persuasive speaker, in fact, a lot of this in law school is exactly what they did do. They taught us a lot of these tricks in law school.
Okay, I would be telling you to learn these fallacies so that you could use them, because they're going to help you to win an argument, particularly if you're in a tight spot or something like that. I mean, much of the time, probably most of the time, fallacies are more effective than truthful arguments. So this is not a course on how to win arguments. It's a course on how to find truth through critical thinking.
So you may end up losing an argument you know or a discussion on the spot because your opponent cleverly uses various fallacious arguments. Now, if you recognize the fallacy, then you might be able to point it out and, you know, turn it by saying, " Oh, you're using ad hominem. You're attacking me, not the argument. Let's get back to the argument. " But like I say, they can often be subtle. So sometimes your only consolation is that you have acted with integrity, and you have defended the truth with honesty.
Also, depending on the setting, often you can afterwards point out the fallacies that your opponent has used and show your listeners why this is an unsound argument.
In other words, you might have a group discussion and someone uses one of these fallacies and you're sort of stymied at the time, but later you're back with the same group, and then, yeah, you've gone over in your mind, you've realized, " Oh, that was this fallacy, " and you can point it out, or someone has we've had this in our church where something has been taught. And yeah, then the next week we can explain, " Aha, this was actually not correct what this person said.
" Maybe it was a visiting speaker or something like that. I mean, normally we would let it go unless it's something really, really huge. So the battle for truth isn't necessarily lost. And of course, when you're reading a book, and maybe at the moment you don't catch the fallacy, but you know something's not wrong, well, yeah, you have time to go back over, and then it's very helpful to realize, " Oh, yeah, this is this particular fallacy.
" But as I said, it can be very difficult to catch fallacies right on the spot, in the middle of a discussion. And it can be difficult to know how to respond to them immediately, even if you do catch them. But most of us don't have minds that always think that quickly. So, like I say, this isn't about, you know, winning arguments. This is about finding truth.
Also, from what I've seen in real life, when people use these various fallacies that we've been discussing and we will discuss more today, it often isn't blatant.
What I mean is that, you know, when you go to a book, and I've got one at home that discusses different fallacies, or you go on websites, and there's a lot of websites out there that, you know, identify the different fallacies, well, when they give you an example of that fallacy, they invariably give you a very flagrant example, and that's probably good, you know, for their purposes, so you understand what that fallacy is. But in real life, when it's used, it's usually going to be a lot more subtle.
It isn't gonna just jump out at you. To give you an illustration of how the books are, I mean, this has stuck with me from 10th grade high school when, I think, the first time that I was exposed to a study of fallacies, it was in English class, and the example for ad hominem, which is an argument that attacks the person rather than attacking the actual argument, the example given was, " Well, no wonder you believe in evolution. You look like a monkey. " Well, in real life, no one would use that argument.
If you were having a private discussion, you were trying to persuade them of the truth of creation. I mean, if you used that, I mean, you know, you would have lost the day. And if you were talking at a high school or college, you know, before an audience, you were having a debate on evolution versus creation, and you use that against your opponent, well, you would probably turn the audience against you. So, like I say, they're usually a lot more subtle in that.
Sometimes in political debates, which I don't watch very many, yeah, they can get pretty blatant there, but often they're playing to a partisan crowd who is just glad that they made a clever point. In real life, fallacies are normally used more subtly, and frequently, they're used in combination is what I've found. So when you're analyzing an argument later on, and you know it's not completely sound, but it can be hard to pigeonhole which fallacy has been committed.
In fact, when we were going to start this course last fall, well, I guess we did start it, but it ended up being a course on how to find truth. But originally, I think we announced it was going to be a course on fallacies. I mean, I knew we would be getting to the discussion of fallacies, but we didn't start there. Well, people send in examples from different websites or books or things like that you know for us to maybe discuss.
And it was interesting because I noticed, yeah, there's a fallacy there, but I had to give a lot of thought to pigeonhole. Is it this fallacy or is it this one? ' Cause sometimes it was half of this and half of another one. And you'll find that all the time. It's, you know, an argument is partly begging the question and it's partly a straw man argument. In fact, it may be three or four fallacies all rolled into one. So don't imagine that in real life that these fallacies are always going to just jump out at you.
It often takes a bit of analysis, and that's why they're effective in debates and oral discussions, that is, fallacies, because you don't always have time to analyze right on the spot. And like I say, it can be a bunch of things combined, and it's only afterwards that you can really unravel it. But again, if it's in a book or a letter or something like that, you have time to do that. Okay, so with that introduction, let's move on. We'll start by just reviewing from the last lesson.
In the last lesson, we looked at three common fallacies. The first one is ad hominem, and this is when you attack the person rather than attacking their argument. And this frequently takes the form of either ridiculing your opponent or maybe pointing out some flaws in his character or in his education. And they may be genuine things, but they don't have anything to do with whether his argument is right or wrong. The second one we talked about last week was the anecdotal fallacy.
And this fallacy is using a personal experience or an isolated example of something that has happened, and you use it as an attempt to establish a fact or a universal principle. Like, you know, I took some kind of you know tonic when I had a headache or something, and that cleared my headache up, and I was just fine. And there's nothing wrong or dishonest with that, but that doesn't mean it's going to clear up everybody's headache just because yours got better, and maybe it's not what got yours better.
Maybe it was a coincidence. Okay, the third one we talked about last time was begging the question. And this is also known as circular reasoning. The person starts off with the presumption that their premise is automatically true. So we use the example of a lot of King James-only people. They're supposedly proving that these other translations are false, but they've already started with the conclusion that King James is the only true Bible.
And so they'll point out, well, the NIV, see, it says this, but the Bible says this, meaning the King James says this. Well, wait a minute, you're supposed to be proving that King James is the Bible, but you use that intertwined in your argument, so you're really going in a circle. And often people don't realize they're doing this, but yeah, you can see it right away. Wait a minute. This is begging the question. You haven't proved the premise you're supposed to prove. You've only attacked the other side.
You've only shown that that differs from this, but you haven't proved which one is true. And I'm not a big fan of modern translations, so don't misunderstand my illustration there. The thing I noticed you know looking online at examples of fallacies, they always use the group that they don't agree with as an example of people who use fallacies. In other words, most of the sites look like they're from liberal universities or people who've graduated from there.
So when they want to give an example of someone who uses a fallacy, so many of them are going to be creationists that you know we who believe in creation, yeah, we use all these dumb arguments. You know They never use an example of somebody who maybe believes in evolution like they do, but has used a bad argument. No, it's always, you know, we creationists. Or there would be left-wing, and so all their examples would be something that a Trump supporter would say, or Donald Trump has said this, or whatever.
And it makes it look like, " Oh, it's only the other side that uses fallacies. " And the truth is, all sides do. So, I mean, we Christians often use fallacies, Christians that I agree with who are on the same side as me on various theological issues. Yeah, I've heard it where they use a fallacy in their argument. I mean, I agree with their position, but I've noticed, eh, that's not really a sound argument. Okay, so today, let's talk about some new ones.
The first one we're going to talk about is known as the false dilemma. Also, it's known sometimes as the false dichotomy. Either one fits. And it's where someone treats an issue as though there are only two options. It's either this or it's that. And it is so commonly used.
I mean, if you have a theological discussion with somebody, or you do this very often, you have a lot of theological discussions, I can almost guarantee you, you're going to have this come up over and over because the person isn't necessarily trying to be dishonest. They think in black and white, and so they see this or they see that.
Or sometimes, yeah, they just think they've trapped you because they've posed it that way and they realize that it's not a very sound argument, but they think they're being very clever by the way they do it. And they don't acknowledge that, hey, maybe there's a middle ground. There's maybe some more reasonable alternatives. So I'll give you some examples.
The one I see all the time is never just stated necessarily exactly like this, but so many books, so many pamphlets, so many sermons will discuss salvation from the perspective is either we earn our salvation by our works or we're saved by faith alone. I mean, it's either one or the other. And they never talk about, " Hey, what about the possibility that we're saved by faith, but God does require our obedient response to that faith, to the salvation He has given us?
" I mean, there is a middle ground there, but like I say, it's rarely, rarely brought up. It's always treated like it's this or that. Another example, this was used in an actual book. It was an effective illustration, I mean, very persuasive, but it was the fallacy of false dichotomy. And in this presentation, the speaker, I think they had a PowerPoint, if I remember it correctly. And in the picture, it was either in a book or in a PowerPoint, or maybe it was both. There was scales.
On one side of the scales, the speaker said, " Okay, these are all your good works stacked up, " you know, and it listed all these different things you've done. And, you know, of course, it pulled the scales way down that way. Wow, look at all of these good works. And then, in the next part of the diagram, then the speaker just puts a drop of Jesus ' blood on the other side of the scales, and it immediately goes this way, that, " Yeah, just a drop of Christ's blood outweighs all of your good works.
" Well, I wouldn't even disagree with that statement. I think that is probably true. We're saved by the blood of Christ. But the false dichotomy is that, " Oh, it's either our works or it's the blood of Christ. " You know, John says, " If we walk in the light, then Jesus ' blood cleanses us from our sins.
" So, yeah, they can both be true that we're saved by Christ's blood, but He requires us to be having a living relationship, a obedient love, faith relationship with Him if His blood is going to be continually cleansing us. So it's not an either/or situation. I'll give you another example. These are all real-life examples that I'm giving you. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard this argument in different forms in talking about the head covering.
When the person is out of other options, you know, you're looking at 1 Corinthians 11, and so they'll finally throw out. So are you saying a woman can't be saved if she doesn't wear a head covering? Well, that's the false dichotomy. We're not necessarily talking about salvation. We haven't even mentioned whether this is going to cost you your salvation or it's not going to cost you it, and maybe that's an irrelevant issue to be looking at. The point is, what is 1 Corinthians 11 teaching?
What does God tell us to do? Whether or not it's going to be the thing that affects our salvation isn't really the issue. And people, Christians who wear head coverings, who respect 1 Corinthians 11, they would hardly ever argue from that because, like I say, it's a false dichotomy, but it sounds effective like, oh, no, okay, well, then it doesn't matter. No, just because something maybe isn't a you know we will lose heaven over this issue, that doesn't mean that it's not a commandment we need to follow.
Okay, this next one, it was in a letter and it's, you know, anonymous. I don't think any way you would know who the letter's from, and a fine brother. I'm not ridiculing him at all. I mean, just a good Christian brother. But he made this statement, and I'm sure it sounded very good to him.
He said, " A good test of the genuineness of my love for a brother is to ask myself this question: Am I happy to expose, excuse me, to expose his blind spots, or would I rather stand in front of him and hope that no one else noticed those blind spots? " In other words, do I get enjoyment out of pointing out, you know, the blind spots of somebody, you know, a brother in Christ, or would I rather shield them and hope other people don't notice that? Well, that's a false dichotomy.
Again, the person didn't realize this in his letter, but the fallacy comes in is, am I happy to expose his blind spot? Well, sometimes the blind spot, a sin, needs to be exposed. I may not be happy doing it. In fact, you know, personally, I always hate having to talk to a brother or sister about a sin or about a problem. I would so much rather, you know, somebody else do it or to evade the responsibility, but sometimes it needs to be done if we love our brother.
I mean, you know, Matthew 18, Jesus says, you know, to talk to your brother about it. So it's not a matter that I'm necessarily happy about doing it. Yeah, sometimes you want to shield a brother that, yeah, you don't want someone to notice one of his flaws because it's not that important, and you would rather shield them. But see, it's a false dichotomy that, okay, either you're happy to expose your brother's blind spots or you shield them.
Well, yeah, there's a middle ground that sometimes you shield them, sometimes you need to expose them. So those are just some examples from real life. And like I say, that is an extremely common argument, this false dichotomy. And people who do it usually don't even realize that they are committing a fallacy. They're not trying to trick you or something like that. All right, let's move on. The next one is what's called the red herring.
And this fallacy occurs when someone presents something irrelevant in an attempt to distract their audience away from the topic or the real issue that's being discussed. I mean, it's often used to avoid answering a question that the person can't answer. They just change the subject and start talking about something else. Or maybe the discussion they find they're in hot water. And so the way to get out of it is to change the subject, start talking about something else that's maybe irrelevant.
And sometimes it's just changing the subject altogether in a live presentation. And oddly enough, it's very effective because the listeners will become absorbed in the narrative that the speaker brings up, and they'll forget the fact that the speaker hasn't answered the question or that the speaker has changed the subject. And the more sensitive or emotionally appealing the red herring is, the harder it is for the audience to resist.
Particularly if the red herring will stir up prejudices or sympathies in the audience. Now, why the name red herring? Well, this is coming from a tertiary source, so I'm not going to vouch for it, but you know it sounds logical enough. I assume it's true. Supposedly, in fox hunting, which is largely disappeared, maybe they still do it in some places in England, what they do, they don't just go out looking for a fox normally because they may not find one.
Instead, they have already captured a fox that they've got in a cage, okay? They release the fox, you know, let it run out in the woods, they give it a bit of time, and then they come with a pack of fox hounds to, you know, follow its trail. And they're on horses, usually, following then the dogs.
And to make it a little bit more difficult for the dogs, supposedly sometimes, and to make it more fair for the fox, somebody in the hunting party would go out after the fox was released, and they would take a red herring, the actual fish, which has a strong smell, like I guess most fish do, and they would drag it across the track where the fox went.
So if the fox went this way, they would drag the red herring, the actual fish, on the ground this other direction for a certain way, and then maybe in a circle or something, to get the dogs to, you know, maybe start following that scent instead of the fox. So that's why this is given the name red herring. It's a way to try to get somebody off the scent of what the real argument is. And oh, it's used a lot in the political sphere. It's used a lot in lawsuits and things like that.
People bring up something either totally irrelevant or only slightly relevant to draw attention away from the issue at hand. And if it's a winning story, they often, I mean, they'll win over their audience by something that, you know, really stirs up the audience. The example that I'll probably never forget, because this happened a long time ago, back when I was in my early 30s, I was at a seminar, an oil and gas seminar. I was practicing oil and gas law.
And actually, the seminar, what it was about, there was a new federal law. At that time, natural gas prices, at least interstate, were regulated by the federal government. You could only sell them natural gas for, you know, say, you know, a dollar per thousand cubic feet, something like that.
And they had passed the law that if the gas was in a tight rock formation, that the only way you could get that gas was to frack that rock, fracture it using hydraulic, strong hydraulic pressure, then that gas could legally be sold for a considerably higher price because the cost of fracking was as much as the cost of drilling the well. And so that's what the seminar was about, in which, by the way, fracking has been around a long time.
People in the 21st century, they think this is something pretty new in the last 15 years or something. Like I said, this was the early 1980s, and it wasn't new technology. It had been around for quite a while then. But anyway, so that's what the seminar was about. And they had, as their, you know, key guest speaker, he was one of the railroad commissioners, which probably sounds strange to you if you're not from Texas. In Texas, the Railroad Commission is the agency that regulates oil and gas in Texas.
Like I say, it sounds odd to anyone not from Texas. And I think at the time, I think I read that the Railroad Commission, its main job was to regulate railroads. That was a big thing. And then when oil was discovered, that was a minor thing. And I thought, well, yeah, we'll just give that responsibility to the Railroad Commission. I mean, it's not worth setting up a whole new commission just for oil and gas. That's going to be a little thing.
Well, of course, by the time I was on the scene, oil and gas was the big thing that the Railroad Commission did. Regulating railroads would have been just a tiny part of it. But that's a red herring. I mean, that's aside, but I'm not trying to trick you in any way. So the speaker got up and like I said, we're talking about natural gas. And the point was, in fact, of the seminar was to teach us how to fill out the federal forms so that our company would qualify that that gas would qualify for the higher price.
So anyway, he gets up and he starts talking about lignite, which is a type of coal that is low grade. There's not high BTU content in it. And anyway, so he said he was talking about it a little bit. They had started mining it quite a bit in Texas. And he said he was really excited about this discovery of lignite and the new use of lignite. They would mine it, but because it was heavy and low BTUs, they would usually set up a power plant right close to where they mined it.
The two were usually right there together where they wouldn't have to transport it very far, and then they would use it to generate electricity. And he said the good thing about lignite, he says it's you know low BTUs, it's heavy, that means you can't transport it far. And you know what that means? It means that none of the blankety blank Yankees are going to get any of it. And, you know, boy, everyone started cheering and standing up and clapping and everything.
And it's like this doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about, but everyone liked it because it was a knock on the Yankees. You know And Texans didn't like it, that our natural gas was being transported up north. And because it was an interstate commerce, people like in New York State paid less for Texas gas, natural gas than people in Texas did, because within the state, it wasn't regulated by the federal government. So anyway, so yeah, they weren't going to get any of the lignite.
But yeah, it was very effective. I mean, the audience probably thought, well, man, this was great. The only point I can even possibly figure out other than that he was just wanting to give a speech that got a lot of applause, was I think he was up for election, you know, in the next year and probably won a lot of people over that. Okay, this guy hates Yankees, you know, like the rest of most Texans.
Okay, another real-life example, and this was taught to us, and this is, wow, disturbing because this was in law school, this was at Baylor University, a Southern Baptist University, or at least at the time it was, it's still a Christian university. And our teacher was a very devout Southern Baptist. And, you know, he's teaching us all these tricks to use, you know, in trial that, you know, are actually dishonest, but very effective.
So, he mentioned that day in his lecture, he said, " You know, most people are very bad at estimating time or distance. " So often when you're cross-examining a witness, you'll find they'll say something and they're way off because people are bad at estimating. And he said, " Now, don't point out at the time while you're cross-examining them, because if you point it out, then they'll backtrack on you and all of that.
" But if you just wait until the closing arguments when it's too late then to go back, then pull it out and you can really drive it home and often, you know, sway the jury. So he gave us a real-life example. There was a truck accident, and it was between a truck and a car. And on cross-examination of the teacher, he was, at that time, a practicing trial attorney. He was a retired trial attorney when he was teaching there at the school.
Anyway, he said he was cross-examining the truck driver, and he said, " Okay, so after you hit this car, how long did you stay in the cab of your truck before you went out and, you know, checked on the person in the car to see if they needed aid or something like that? " And the truck driver said, " Oh, I don't know, about five minutes. " Well, he didn't say anything. He just went on. And then the teacher told us, " Now it was probably about 30 seconds. " He said, " People are terrible on estimating time.
" And if I had said, " You mean five minutes? You stayed there a whole five minutes? " He would have probably said, " Well, no, it probably wasn't that long, " but he said, " I didn't say a word about it. " Then on closing argument, he said, " I got up there and said, you know, there's this terrible accident. This poor woman is in the car bleeding. " And so what does he do, the truck driver? He sits there in the warmth and safety of his truck for five whole minutes.
He said, " Then I got up, and this would have been a small country county courthouse. " He said, " I went up and walked out the front door of the courthouse. " He said, " I walked around the courthouse. " It had windows so the jury could watch me. I walked around the entire courthouse and then came back in through the door, walked back up in front of the jury. Then I said, " One minute. " That was just one minute. And so they're thinking, wow, that was only one minute, you know, walking around the court.
It seemed like a long time when you're sitting there and that guy sat there five minutes, you know? Well, yeah, it was very persuasive to the audience, but it's a red herring. I mean, like I say, it wasn't even probably true, and it didn't have anything to do with the guilt or innocence or anything of the accident. But yeah, the audience is thinking that mean truck driver, that, you know, inconsiderate, whatever. See, it's a red herring. But they're effective, as I was telling you.
I mean, he was, you know, really, really proud of this. So another example, and this is something I just ran across online. I think I was reading about something else. It was back when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were running against each other for president, and they were having a series of presidential debates. And one of them, I think it was just one of them, CNN was the moderator of the debate. Well, they did something very unethical, extremely. It should be illegal. I don't know that it was then.
But they secretly gave Hillary Clinton the questions in advance that were going to be asked. So she could prepare her answers, whereas Donald Trump you know would have to answer just you know on the fly. Well, they did this by email and probably somebody who worked there at CNN who was sympathetic towards Trump, you know they let this leak out.
And so then when it came out, you know reporters you know confronted the executive of CNN and said, you know hey, this was terrible you know of giving these questions secretly to one side and not the other. And the person responded by saying, " This was an unethical breach of email that you know it is against the law to you know go into somebody else's private email account and to steal their emails. " And you know this whole long discussion is like, " Wait a minute, that's a red herring.
" I mean, that all may be true, but the point is you did something extremely dishonest trying to sway a presidential election. And instead of answering, responding to it, yeah, you're bringing up a side issue to get your audience distracted on that. Perfect example of red herring. And I've noticed in sermons often, it's usually not blatant, but the speaker is maybe trying to prove a particular theological point. Often they maybe take it for granted. And they'll just state it or something.
And rather than proving it, they'll relate a lot of moving narratives, you know a story of somebody. Maybe it's a very sad story or a very joyful story about somebody coming to Christ, or something that's just very interesting that happened to the speaker that's you know somewhat related, but it's a side point. And what'll happen then, and again, it's very effective, is the audience, see, they're swayed by these stories, and yeah, it's really great. And at the end, it's like, " Man, that was a great message.
" And it's like, " Yeah, but he never proved his point. " He just made a naked assertion and then went on all of these stories, you know, dealing with you know someone's salvation or this and that. And maybe they're vaguely related to it, maybe you know only just a little bit, but people are caught up and are enjoying them. And in their mind, oh, they've heard this great sermon on this subject. And like I say, it may be an important topic that the speaker never proves. So always watch for that.
Okay, the next one I want to talk about is the straw man fallacy. Again, one that's used very, very frequently. Sometimes subtly, sometimes it can vary on it. And this fallacy occurs when your opponent takes your argument or your position, and then they distort it or exaggerate it. And then they attack the distortion instead of what you're really saying. And this is sometimes also, we talked about the false dilemma. And so often it's combined with the false dilemma.
In other words, they take what you say, and then they create a false dilemma out of it, and then they're arguing for this false dilemma as if that is your position when it's a straw man. It's not what you've ever said, but it doesn't have to be connected with a false dilemma. It takes many forms. It's very, very common. I mean, it's used all the time, of course, in political debates, dirty debating, and all that.
But Christians often use it, and they don't realize that they're doing something that's actually intellectually dishonest. Because like I said, they attack then. They distort your position. They restate it in a way that's not fully accurate. And then that's what they debate against. And as I said, it can be very effective in winning over an argument, but it's extremely dishonest, particularly when it's blatant and they're doing it on purpose.
Sometimes, again, it can be very subtle and you don't even realize your opponent is doing this to you. So it can take both forms. Now, I was telling you the examples online, when you look for examples of these fallacies, it's always something blatant that wouldn't happen in real life. So when I looked this one up to try to get an example of straw man, this is what one of the websites gave as an example.
It said, " A biology teacher begins teaching evolution by stating that all things evolve, but then a student says that she just can't accept that humans came from bugs. That's her example of straw man. Well, ironically, they've just created a straw man. Nobody who believes in creation would ever use that as an argument. I've never heard that statement in my entire life, and I'm somebody who you know believes that God created us an opponent of evolution. And it's like, I've never heard anyone say that.
Oh, I can't believe I came from a bug. And so they are setting up a straw man. And yes, if somebody argued that, it would be a straw man. Evolution doesn't say that humans came from bugs. They would say that both bugs and humans evolved from some lower life form, and, you know, they went on different tracks or something like that. But as I said, so often these illustrations are against creationists like we're all just a bunch of idiots, and we all just use all these fallacious argument forms of argumentation.
Okay, we mentioned the one earlier. Oh, so you're saying that a woman can't be saved if she doesn't wear a head covering. Now, that was an example, like, say, of a false dichotomy, but it's also a straw man, because that's not usually what someone is saying when they're discussing 1 Corinthians 11 and what it teaches about the head covering. They don't bring that up at all. But the other person distorts their argument, " Oh, so this is what you're saying. Now you're having to defend an entirely different issue.
" So, yeah, when your opponent's using that on you, and often, like you say, it'll be blatant and you can see it. So on the spot, you can say, " You know, you're setting up a straw man. That is not what I'm saying. " This is, you know, and get back to what you are saying. We're discussing what does Paul command here, not discussing, you know, what affects our salvation or doesn't affect it. This next one is a real example. Somebody called me up and I never did find out how they got my number.
I don't make my number just real easy to get, mainly because I get nice calls. You know, readers call me and want to just encourage me, which is wonderful. And I'd love to just, you know, do sit all day and listen to, you know, compliments and words of encouragement, but then I wouldn't get any work, any research, whatever done.
But occasionally, there'll be cranky calls, and this one was, and they wanted to they called up because they wanted to attack it's not my teaching, what the early Christians teach about baptism, that it's more than just a symbol. Anyway, so he was giving all kinds of straw man, you know, things of, you know, what I supposedly teach about baptism. And so I was trying to answer this or that. I was getting kind of annoyed because, yeah, this was a total stranger.
I was trying to figure out how they got my number and just call up out of the blue and just start attacking. I mean, it was just like, " What on earth? You know We don't even have a relationship. You know What set this off? " And then when I'm trying to explain what the early Christians did teach about salvation, he said, " Oh, so you're saying that Jesus can't save us apart from baptism? " Straw man. I never said that. Jesus can do what he wants.
He saved the thief on the cross without at least a literal water baptism. I mean, Jesus can do whatever he wants. He can save whomever he wants. All I've said is in the normal course progression of things, you know, requires faith, conversion, repentance, and baptism is sort of the closing act. I mean, it's what I was trying to explain, and yeah, he distorted it as if I was saying something else, and then, you know, attacking that. I didn't let him get away with it.
It was such an obvious, blatant example of straw man. Okay, here's another one from a letter that was saying it was dealing with a theological argument. And the person said this, again, a nice person. I'm not attacking the person, and I don't think there's any way you would have any clue to who this is. He said this in his letter. " You seem to think that we need to disprove everything our Protestant brothers teach and believe. If the Protestants believe it, it can't be true, and we must somehow prove it wrong.
" End quote. Well, I've never said that. That's certainly not my position. I disagree with certain key teachings of evangelical Protestants, even more teachings of liberal Protestants, but there would be lots of doctrines that evangelicals hold to that I would hold to as well, that are truly part of the historic faith. I hardly think that, " Oh, if a Protestant teaches it, I have to go out and find a way to disprove it. " I mean, that's just total straw man.
It misrepresents what I'm saying, but it was a way instead of attacking the real issue, it's creating this fake issue over here. And then you know if someone else had been reading this letter, it's like, " Oh, yeah, well, we can't be against everything Protestants do. " And like I say, it's a straw man. It's also a red herring. You're bringing up a totally different issue. I mean, this particular theological thing actually didn't even start with Protestants. It started with Roman Catholics.
So, you know, there's no direct connection there other than a lot of Protestants believe it. But anyway, so as I said, fallacies are often combined. So in a discussion or debate, a speaker will often take something out of context that his opponent has said. So that's one fallacy, taking it out of context. But then he'll pretend that that's that person's real position and then attack that fake position. So you've got taking out of context, and you also have straw man.
Or as I used in the example, you can have a red herring on top of it. And like I said, you can easily have three or four things all thrown in together. And it can sound very convincing to an audience hearing this. It's like this and this and that. And sometimes, like I say, it's a little hard on the spot to analyze, okay, and have an answer, you know, just like that. Some people think you know extremely quickly. And to be a good trial attorney, I mean, that's what they told us in law school.
You've got to be able to think and answer right on the spot. Well, I personally am not very good at that. I like to take time and analyze something and digest it. So I would have never, even if I hadn't had ethical reasons, Christian reasons for not being a trial attorney.
I wouldn't have been that good at it because, no, I'm not that good at just being able to come up with an answer on the spot, because often you don't care if it's a correct answer or not, just, you know, something to change the subject or whatever. So, that will end our discussion today on fallacies. There's still some more that are very common that in our next lesson, it'll probably be our last lesson on fallacies that we'll be going through next time.
And again, these are important to know when you're searching for truth. Like I say, an opponent can use these and maybe win an argument, but if you're looking for truth, it's important to be able to spot these to realize, " Ah, that was persuasive, but it's really false. " And then you can then find what the actual truth is. Well, thank you for listening. God bless you.
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