Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about learning to spot fallacies. This is part of the series that we've been doing on critical thinking. And if we're ever going to be critical thinkers, it's important that we learn how to recognize fallacies when we see them. We're not always gonna be able to refute them, but when you see one, then you recognize, " Aha, that's a fallacy. This is misleading. I need not to be misled or distracted by that.
" Now, the definition of a fallacy is an argument that's either misleading, dishonest, or unsound. And if an argument is fallacious, then the conclusion the person is coming to actually doesn't follow from the reasons that he's giving or from the premises that he started out with. But now this is the important thing to remember, and it's very sad, and it's this, is that fallacies are very effective as a form of argumentation.
So in other words, you would think, " Oh, if somebody's up there in a debate or has written a book or giving a sermon, and he's got a lot of fallacies, oh boy, that just destroys his argument. If he's in a debate, " Oh, he's going to lose because he's used all these fallacies. " No, no. He's very likely to win because they're very persuasive. They sound logical. They sound like an effective thing, or sometimes they're just clever, and the other person doesn't know how to respond to them.
And so that's the hard part of this whole thing is, in other words, if I was going to try to train you on how to win a debate, if I had no ethics, and I wanted to train you to be a good debater or to be a good trial lawyer, or to be a good politician, then I would want you to study all of the different fallacies, because these are all the ways you can trip up your opponent and win over your audience when you don't have the facts on your side. So that's the very sad thing.
But now as critical thinkers, we're looking for truth. We're not trying to win debates or get elected to an office or something like that. And so we need to recognize these because, like I say, on the surface, they often sound very persuasive, and they will carry us away if we don't realize, " Ah, this is a fallacy. " It sounds good. It's clever, but it's a false way of reasoning.
Now, ironically, when you go to a book about fallacies or today, probably most of us go to a website, and there's quite a lot of them out there that discuss fallacies, most of the websites are either connected with a university or with some kind of rational thinking group. And what I notice is invariably, the examples they give of different fallacies are attributed to people who hold to beliefs that are different than theirs.
For example, most of these sites are not done by Christians, and so you almost can never go through the list of fallacies without seeing a whole bunch of them attributed to creationists. Like one of them when it was explaining begging the question, which is where you kind of argue in a circle, it was presented this way as an example. God created the earth, that's the premise. This is supposed to be a creationist arguing this. Number two, the Bible says that God created the earth.
All right, that's his, to back up what he said. Number three, the Bible is God's Word. Therefore, we know that God created the earth. Well, you know, no apologist for creationism would ever use that argument. We might explain to our children, you know, the Bible says that God created the world, and the Bible is God's Word, and so we can believe it.
But none of us, if we're having a debate or writing a book trying to persuade non-believers to believe in creation, would we ever use such a simplistic argument as that, because it would only hold weight to somebody who already views the Bible as God's Word. But that's the example that they gave as an example of begging the question. And I saw this all over.
It's always creationists who are saying something stupid or dumb or arguing in that way, or it's right-wing Americans, because most of these websites or like I say, they're from universities or whatever, usually from left-wing thinkers. So they always attribute the fallacies to people on the other political spectrum. And that in itself is a fallacy. They're being, you know, very dishonest. Global warming would be a perfect example.
Most of these, the fallacies are always attributed to somebody who is questioning the present scenario presented on global warming. And so they always have that person who doesn't believe in human global warming as saying something really fallacious. I guess that's human nature, but the truth is, is that even people who are on our side, who uphold the truth, let's say Christians who would believe like we do, they often use fallacies in their reasoning.
Somebody had suggested maybe we ought to do one of these on listing all the fallacies that I've given in my books or in my messages. Well, and I would have no objection to doing that, because I'm like everybody else. It's very easy to fall in the trap of using a fallacy. I don't think you'll find very many in my books or in my messages, because this is something I've taken an interest in. I guess I first learned about them in high school.
And then even though I was a business major, pre-law business major in college, I went ahead and took a course from the School of Liberal Arts on logic, just because it's always been interesting to me to learn logical thinking. And of course, a part of that course was all about fallacies. So I've been fairly familiar with what the common fallacies are ever since I was in high school, and I try hard to avoid them, but I doubt I'd do a perfect job.
So it's not really fair to always give the example like it's someone who's an unbeliever who uses the fallacy, and the Christian always gives the sound argument, or of course, like you say, vice versa the way that it's usually done. Someone may hold to the truth, but they may use a fallacious argument in the course of their discussion. Okay, so we should get that down.
Now we're gonna start, and we're not gonna spend much time on this, but in the last two, perhaps three lessons on critical thinking, I've mentioned a couple of fallacies just in the course of them, so let's just go over them quickly. The first one is the fallacy of using secondary sources. It's an appeal to faulty authority.
Now, in most lists of fallacies, you'll never find that because almost everybody uses secondary sources, and they would hate to list that as a fallacy because they'd be shot out of the saddle from day one. And let's face it, it's a whole lot easier if you're preparing a message on any topic, whether it's something secular, scientific, whether it's theology, history.
Oh, it is so much easier to do your research from secondary and tertiary sources than to have to go back to primary sources, which is gonna be far more time-consuming. And so people don't like to talk about that fallacy, but I would say it's one of the chief fallacies out there, particularly in the biblical world, that people want to go if they want insight on the Bible text, and most people do, they will go to a commentary, a tertiary source, and most commentaries don't even have any footnotes.
But if they had any, the footnotes would be to secondary sources. It's very rare that they are basing what they're saying on a primary source, okay? So that's the first, to me, one of the ultimate fallacies. The second one that we talked about, I think, in our first lesson, was the fallacy of quoting something out of context. We mainly have used it in the context of quoting the Bible out of context, which happens all the time, taking a verse and not paying attention to the context of it.
But people do that with humans. I've been quoted out of context many times that, " Oh, I've said such and such. " And sometimes, you know, I have to go back as like, " I said that? That doesn't sound like me. " And usually the person can't show me where I've said it. But if I think about it, sometimes I can remember, " Oh, yeah, I said that. " But yeah, the context was something very different in the way that you're using it against me. And so, people do that with books all the time.
They take people out of context on claims that they have made. And sometimes it's not dishonest, sometimes it is. They're doing it on purpose. Okay, in, I think, the lesson before last, we talked about what in college I learned as the fallacy of the beard. Today, it's more often known as the continuum fallacy. And this is the fallacy where someone says, " Well, if you can't point to a clear line of demarcation where you know black ends and white begins, " well, then there isn't any distinction between the two.
And it's a terrible fallacy. It sounds very logical, but there are so many things in life where there is no clear line where you can say, " This is what it is. " What is a good boy versus a bad boy? I mean, can you draw a line somewhere? How many times they've disobeyed their parents? That makes them a bad boy, and how many times they've obeyed, that makes them a good boy. I mean, there's no line, but it doesn't mean that there aren't good children and bad children.
I don't know where the line is between an honest person and a dishonest person. Every fallible human has probably told a lie at some time. How many lies does it take before you're a dishonest person? I mean, I don't know, but it doesn't mean that there's no difference between an honest and a dishonest person. It doesn't mean there's no such thing as an honest person just because you can't draw a line. I'll give you a real-life illustration that was used on me.
And of course, at the time, I didn't quite catch what the fallacy was, and that's why I said at the beginning, they are very effective, because even people who know about fallacies, you sometimes don't catch it right at the moment of, " Oh, yeah, that's such-and-such a fallacy, particularly in time to respond.
" So this was the fallacy that was given to me, and this person didn't realize, I don't think, that I held to the biblical belief that our obedience to Christ is essential, that works, meaning obedience, do play a role in our salvation. So we were driving, we were on our way to a restaurant in another town, and we were just talking, and he was ridiculing people who believe that works are necessary for salvation. And he said, " If salvation is based on works, you know where do you draw the line?
How many works do you need in order to get saved? And how many are too few? " Yeah, who can say? Obviously, we can't be saved by works. Well, it's a perfect example of the fallacy of the beard. And if I had caught it at that moment, I would have just thrown that back at him and explained to him he was using the fallacy of the beard. I think also I didn't care to get in a theological argument. I had just accepted an invitation to, you know, to go out to eat. It was supposed to be, I thought, a friendship thing.
I realized later that they were interested in trying to convert us to join their evangelical church, but I wasn't interested in getting into theological conflicts. I had enough as a Jehovah's Witness. This was just a few years after leaving, so I just, you know, left the subject alone. But yeah, if that happened now, I think I would immediately point out, did you realize you just used the fallacy of the beard?
Okay, another one that's common, oh, it's so common in both Christian circles, theological ones, in politics, it's all the time. And I would say just in debates in general, people will use it, and that's name-calling. Sometimes it's called the fallacy of labeling. It's a variety of the ad hominem argument that we'll be talking about shortly where you're attacking the person. And it's a dangerous fallacy because it is so effective.
I mean, today, the left, I'd say primarily are the ones who use it, although politically, although you would see it on the right as well. But basically the left have very brilliantly come up with all these labels to stick on people, racist, sexist, homophobic, would be just three examples. So if you say anything critical about a person of another nationality or race or anything about their culture, ah, you're racist.
Of course, someone could say anything they want about the Caucasian culture, and oh, well, that's fine. Yeah, that's a good argument. That's a good point. Or the same way, say anything that would involve females in general, any typical traits of females, not necessarily universal. Oh, that's sexist, that's terrible. And yet those same people will turn around and do the same thing with men and generalize them and stuff that they do. And so like I say, it's very effective.
I mean, in the political realm, oh, if you just even make one statement that can be labeled as racist, you're dead. They've just killed you and won the argument right there, even though that's a fallacious form of argumentation. You're putting often dishonest labels on people. I'd say 99% of the time it's dishonest, or hate speech. If you say something like, you know, what the Bible teaches about homosexuality, " Oh, that's hate speech.
" Now, those same people can say all kinds of things ridiculing Christians and denouncing what the Bible teaches. That's not hate speech. But if you denounce what they stand for, what the left stands for, then it's hate speech. So it's a very effective way to shut people down, and it's just important that we recognize it.
In the Christian realm, it's probably not used as much as in the social and political realm, but one that comes to my mind, ' cause it's always being thrown at me, and that is the term " baptismal regeneration. " Oh, David believes in baptismal regeneration or so-and-so does. And what I've noticed is that Christians who believe that baptism is an intricate role in the process of salvation as a normal instance. I mean, all Christians would recognize you can be saved without being baptized.
We have the example of the thief on the cross and other people who got martyred when they believed, but before they got baptized. So I don't think anyone that I know of would believe that unless you're baptized, you cannot be saved or even born again. But none of us ever used that term. Now, I have seen it in a Catholic publication, and their view would be a little bit different than most of us who would hold to a biblical view.
They would view it not necessarily as automatic, but very close to it, and that's why they can practice infant baptism. That if you get baptized and if the parents have faith and it didn't take very much faith, just enough that they believe in the apostle's creed or whatever, then you've been born again even as a baby. Well, I would not believe in that. And so that would maybe be a legitimate term for baptismal regeneration, because Catholics will use that.
But it's always being used against those of us who know we would not believe that. We would look at all of the Scriptures and say, " It would seem you know we're saved by the blood of Christ, we're saved through faith, but at what instance does that forgiveness? In what instance does Jesus apply His blood to us to cleanse away our sins? And is that at the moment we're baptized, or is it at the moment when we invite Jesus into our heart?
Well, going through the Bible, I can point to lots of verses that would indicate it's when we're baptized. I can't point to any that would say it's when we invite Jesus into our heart. But like to say by just using that label, because it has a negative connotation, it's a way to, you know, have a giant head start in the argument. Yeah, He believes in baptismal regeneration, even though you would never find me using that term to describe my beliefs.
Or other brothers and sisters I know who would hold to the historic faith as a matter of baptism. Okay, then the last of all, in the last lesson, we talked about the fallacy of presentism. Sometimes people call it the fallacy of chronological snobbery, and that is looking at practices from the past and feeling superior because we believe differently today. It's not how we behave today. And so the idea is, well, see, that's obviously wrong because it doesn't make sense to us today.
But that's a fallacy because just because something is in vogue today doesn't necessarily make it right. And likewise, because people reasoned and looked at things differently 2,000 years ago, doesn't mean that when it comes to the truths of who God is and what theology is correct, that somehow they're wrong because, of course, their views on science or medicine would be outdated today. I'm going to read you a quote. This is from a book entitled, " Don't You Believe It, " it is out of print.
It was written by a Christian professor on logic on the different fallacies. It's a book I bought way back in the 1980s and, you know, really enjoyed it. And unfortunately, it went out of print because it's nice to have a book written by Christians on the whole subject of fallacies. But on the subject, on the fallacy of chronological snobbery or presentism, he quotes from G.K. Chesterton, who was a Catholic writer who is a very good apologist for Christianity. Most of the time he's spot on.
Now, I would disagree with his Catholicism, but not necessarily do I disagree with most of what he wrote. He says this, " It is incomprehensible to me that any thinker can calmly call himself a modernist. He might as well call himself a Thursday night. " The real objection to modernism is simply that it is a form of snobbishness. It's an attempt to crush a rational opponent that one is especially up-to-date, or particularly in the know.
In other words, you make fun of somebody because they hold to views that aren't the modern view. They're not up-to-date in their thinking. To flaunt the fact that we have had all the last books from Germany is simply vulgar. And what it means from there was most liberal theology originated among liberal German theologians, and a lot of modern philosophy originated among German philosophers.
There were plenty of English philosophers as well, but so many of them were German, and he's maybe particularly thinking of Nietzsche here when he says that. It's like flaunting the fact that we have had all the last bonnets from Paris. To introduce into a philosophical discussion, a sneer at a creed's antiquity is like introducing a sneer at a lady's age. It is caddish because it is irrelevant. The pure modernist is merely a snob. He cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion. And that's true.
I mean, people today who are so politically correct, well, politically correctness continues to change. I mean, it changes almost monthly, certainly annually. And oh boy, they've always got to be on the latest whatever the trend is to be modern, to be in the know to be politically correct. And if you hold to a view that's even 30 years old that most modern people would have held to, " Oh, well, you automatically are usually racist or sexist or something like that. " And it's not a very valid way of arguing at all.
It's a form of name-calling, and it's a terrible fallacy that has just blown up today where it's become a huge thing. Okay, so those are the fallacies we've talked about in the previous weeks. I wanted to summarize and maybe go into a little bit more depth. Now I want to talk about some other fallacies that you're almost certainly going to encounter. I mean, I see them almost every time I turn around.
If you listen to any political debate, I don't listen to very many, but sometimes I'll go back, you know, there'll be something that someone said and I'll go back and look at a clip from it. And there's so many fallacies there. Okay, so the first one we'll talk about is ad hominem, and it's very similar to name-calling that I mentioned before. Ad hominem, it's Latin for " against the man, " and it's attacking the opponent personally instead of disproving his arguments.
And it frequently takes the form of ridiculing an opponent or pointing out flaws in his character or flaws in his education. Now, if we're talking about someone who claims to be a prophet, I think it's valid to attack his character, or maybe even a Christian teacher. I don't know if it's in a theological debate, if that would be fair, but if someone is claiming to be a prophet, then I think his character is, you know, open for discussion, it's part of it. I'll give you an illustration.
I don't know if he's even around today. I haven't followed him. There was a creationist who was a very effective debater. His name was Kent Hovind. He probably is still around. He wasn't that old of a man when I had watched him, but this was probably 20 years ago. Someone had given me a DVD with the debate between him and some... It was a college professor, a biology professor on evolution, and I kind of thought this creationist is probably not gonna come across very well.
And the college professor was obviously overconfident that, yeah, he's got this guy who doesn't have this, he might have a PhD, but it's from some college that isn't accredited and so sure he was gonna just make this Kent Hovind looked ridiculous. Well, I was sort of stunned. I mean, he held his own really well. I don't remember any fallacies that he used. He just presented facts that really stood up.
And it was a college professor who was just scrambling and didn't have answers for so many of the facts that were brought up. Now, I looked him up later online, and boy, I saw an interesting lesson. If you are an apologist, an effective apologist for Christianity, for the Bible, for creation, you are going to be attacked mercilessly on the web. All of the evolutionists, all the atheists, they are going to go after you.
So I looked him up, I think this was in Wikipedia, and most of the article yeah was attacking everything they could find wrong with him. Now, he holds to a fallacious, wrong understanding of taxation that the U.S. income tax is unconstitutional, and yeah, it's a bad position for a Christian apologist to be holding. So they attack him on that, make fun of him on that. It has nothing to do with evolution. They took a picture of where he lived.
I don't remember why that had any relevancy to anything, but they were making fun of it, his house or something. Maybe it was a nice house, and aha, see, he's gotten rich off of being an apologist, not as if evolutionists don't get rich, ones who write books and things. And then they attacked his educational status. That is, his degree came from a diploma mill, you know, an unaccredited university where it's very easy to get a PhD or something like that. But it had nothing to do with his arguments on evolution.
It was ad hominem, attack the man, ridicule him, make him look stupid, so that when he presents arguments, you don't have to address his arguments because you have ridiculed him to the point that he has no credibility. And I think did we have a clip we were gonna.
Before I give my thanks to everyone, while the words are still echoing in the hall, I want you to hear that someone who denies sola Scriptura and demands that you read Scripture in the light of the teachings of the Bishop of Rome, just said, " We need to get our theology from the Bible. " Someone who will tell you that Mary is bodily assumed into heaven. We need to get our theology from the Bible. I'm sorry. That went just a little bit beyond where I could let it pass by and not make a few references to that.
So the debate, if it was about the Bible, I would say, " Well, that's perhaps irrelevant. " But the debate was concerning eternal security and whether we have free will, whether our obedience plays a role in our salvation. And it was a Catholic apologist against, " Is this James White who's a Calvinist? " Okay, now normally I'm gonna be on the side, not necessarily of a Calvinist, but of someone who's coming from a more, let's say, Reformed perspective as far as the Bible than I would a Catholic.
But the Catholic debater, he was arguing just totally from the Bible in this debate, and the arguments he was making were totally biblical, and they were very good biblical points. So, James White brings this up, oh, that you say we have to read the Bible according to the Pope, and that Mary was assumed to heaven and all of that. Well, that didn't have anything to do with whether we have free will. It doesn't have anything to do with whether once we're saved, we can lose our salvation.
It doesn't have anything to do with whether obedience plays a role in salvation. But see, it was a very clever thing to throw that in, particularly because a lot of the people in his audience, probably the majority of his audience, were evangelicals. So it's like, " Oh, boy, that's a good point. " But that's attacking the man. It's also a red herring. We're going to get down to that either later today or in our next lesson. It was a good example of that.
So I'm going to give you another example of ad hominem, which is probably an even better one. This was years ago when I was a Jehovah's Witness, and when you knock on people's door well, I mean, most people just brush you off, " I'm not interested, " or whatever, but you would get people who would try to answer you back. And this book, I think, is still in print, but this would have been back in the 1960s when the book was maybe 20 years old. It was called " 30 Years a Watchtower Slave.
" It was written by a former Jehovah's Witness who was fairly high up. He would have been one of their circuit ministers. And he was describing in the book, yeah, just different things that was happening at the headquarters of Jehovah's Witness, by the president of Jehovah's Witnesses, by the men in charge there, and just different things that they did. Now, I had not read the book at that time. We weren't supposed to read it as Jehovah's Witnesses, so I didn't know anything what it was about.
The name, of course, was a little inflammatory, " 30 Years of Watchtower Slave. " So this lady brought it up. We had knocked at her door, and we get in a discussion, and she says, " Have you ever read the book Thirty Years of Watchtower Slaves? " Something like that. And the circuit minister with me, this was his response. He said, " Look, anybody who would work for an organization for 30 years before he found out he was a slave is a jerk, and you know it. " And then he moved on.
Well, it was very effective because she didn't have immediate response to it. But so you were attacking the man. Oh, this guy's a jerk. Who would do that? Well, no, a person could work easily for 30 years, 40 years, or 50 years for any kind of organization, and become convinced later that, " No, this organization is wrong. " That doesn't make you a jerk. It doesn't have anything to do with it.
But by attacking him, it was very effective because she didn't have an immediate answer, and it was like, okay, brushed it off and moved on. As I said at the beginning, fallacies are an effective way to argue. It's just if we are critical thinkers looking for the truth, then we need to you know be looking out for them. Now, if we can think on our feet, then right there, the lady could have said, " Well, that's an ad hominem fallacy. You're attacking the person, not what he said.
" But see, most of us can't think that fast. And so, like you say, it wins the day. Oh, we're moving on to the anecdotal fallacy. Another way of calling it is the testimonial fallacy. And this fallacy occurs when someone uses a personal experience or an isolated example as an attempt to establish a fact or a norm. Now, this is a very tricky one for Christians because we use testimonials to describe things that you know God has done for us.
It's used all the time in revival meetings as someone gives up and gives their testimony of how they got saved, what Jesus has done in their life, et cetera. And that's not necessarily a fallacy. On the other hand, it doesn't necessarily prove what is supposed to be proved. Now, back in the 19th century, before there was the Food and Drug Administration, medicines were not regulated at all by the government.
You could claim anything you wanted, and a lot of medicines are what are called I'm not sure why they're called patent medicines unless the person went and patented it. But of course, modern medicines would all be patented, and I'm doubting a lot of those were, but anyway. And how are they were sold by someone getting up and saying, " Okay, you know, I take a tablespoon of Matthias ' elixir every day. And yeah, it cured my heartburn. I've never had heartburn since or, you know, cancer, " or whatever it was.
In lots of times, these patent medicines had nothing in them that could possibly have cured people of these diseases, like cancer and stuff like that. Often they had a very high alcohol content, which maybe made the person feel good taking it, or something like that, and then maybe some herbs or something like that, but absolutely invalid. But it was very effective, someone getting up and said, " I took this and it did this for me.
" And see, they didn't really prove just because they took it, and as a result, later they had no heartburn. It doesn't prove that that took away their heartburn unless it was the placebo effect, okay? I can give you lots of examples from Jehovah's Witnesses that were given as testimonials to the effect to show that, " Young. " This is obviously God's organization because these wonderful things happened when I became a Jehovah's Witness, when I first believed. Well, Mormons would have those experiences.
Evangelicals have those experiences. People who've converted to Islam have those experiences as well. So it's really not, it's a very effective way to persuade people, but there's a fallacy in it because something happened to you or because you think it happened to you doesn't prove that this is necessarily the truth. So this is a real-life example from Jehovah's Witnesses. A woman was seeking truth, was on her knees, had prayed to God, " Please show me the way. I want to serve you, Father. I do not know.
There are so many religions out there. I don't know which is the true one. Would you please show me the way? " She got through praying, and within like 30 seconds, there was a knock on her door. She goes to the door, and guess who's there, a Jehovah's Witness? And of course, she took that as an answer to her prayer, and that God showed her Jehovah's Witnesses is the way that she was supposed to go. Well, see, an anecdote like that doesn't prove that. There are coincidences in life.
You know, for all I know, there have been other people who have prayed for that, and a Mormon has shown up at their door, or who knows, somebody from a secular college who doesn't even believe in God. I mean, you know, it doesn't prove that, but it's very persuasive. When we heard that as Jehovah's Witnesses, it was like, " Wow, that just clinches it. " Miracle stories are the same way.
I've heard so many miracle stories that are used to try to prove that, see, this church is on the right track because they've had these miracles. I heard that all the time from Catholics and Orthodox when they couldn't persuade me with the Bible, with different theological things. They'd always turn to miracle stories of how, you know, this saint appeared in person in their church, you know, or this or that. This icon of Mary started weeping miraculously. And again, anecdotal is very persuasive.
It's like, " Wow, I've never had a miracle. I like that. " And that often persuaded people to join them even when the facts didn't hold up to scrutiny. A brother that I respect very much was telling about a miracle at this church. It was a charismatic church, and it was being told to show that see because these people believe in healing how God works. And he had been speaking out at that church.
And he said, " During the service, there was a football player there who had been injured in football and was in a wheelchair, and the preacher went down and told him to stand up and then walk to him, which was about five steps. " And he said it was unbelievable. The football player got up out of the chair, and he walked to the preacher, and the preacher put hands on him and prayed, and he walked back and got in the wheelchair.
It's like, wow, just miraculous healing, you know, and it's terrible people who don't believe in it, and they miss these blessings. Well, the problem with that is that because somebody's in a wheelchair doesn't mean that they can't walk. I would estimate that probably the majority of people who you see in a wheelchair can get up and walk. They just have trouble walking, or there's some other reason they're tired, and that's why they're in a wheelchair. I can give you two examples from my own life.
When I had surgery for cancer, when I left the hospital, I guess it's just hospital policy. I'm not sure why, but even though I had been walking, part of my recovery was I had to walk. I mean, they made me get up and walk, I don't know, a few hours after the surgery was over. And the next morning, I mean, I had to get up and walk a certain distance.
And so, yeah, I was fully capable of walking, but for whatever reason, when they were discharging me, somebody came and put me in a wheelchair, and they took me down the elevator in a wheelchair, and then took me out to where the car pickup was, where my wife was in the car to pick me up, and, you know, took me to the car. Well, I was fully capable of walking just because I was in a wheelchair and got up doesn't mean some miracle happened.
Another one, one that I feel kind of sheepish about, ' cause it wasn't supposed to happen. I was coming back from a flight from Honduras. This was a few years ago, I was, I guess, two years ago or so, I was 70, and we were really rushing because there was maybe an hour between the two flights. Miami Airport is a huge airport. I mean, so many airports these days are. And we had to go through customs. And so, you know, you're getting your bags checked.
I think we were bringing some items back that had to go through the inspection of customs, and then there was passport, all of that stuff. And then, you know, getting your luggage off of one conveyor, you know, taking it through customs, and then taking it to another place to get onto the next plane. And then it turned out our next plane was leaving way across the airport. And I was running because time was short. I forget why Deborah was already there.
Maybe my suitcase had, we had pineapples or something in it, and it was my suitcase that happened to have it, so I was the one who got held up. And I thought, " I don't know if I'm gonna make this. " And there was one of the airport personnel there and I said, " Is it possible that I could get a ride ' cause I need to get to gate, such and such? " I meant one of those, I don't know what they're called. They have these little vehicles that scoot around to airports, and you'll often see elderly people in them.
There's some guy who drives and will, you know, gently beep. And, you know, there's usually four or six people on them. And that's what I was trying to get. And there wasn't one close by. So she said, " Here, get in here as a wheelchair. " And so she wheelchaired me. It turned out there was a train that took you across, but she wheeled me to the place where the train, I would pick up the airport train. I mean, I was terribly embarrassed. If I had a sweater on, I think I would've put it over my face.
But you know I got up out of the wheelchair and you know the train came, I walked in the wheelchair. Someone had been watching like, a miracle, that guy just got out of a wheelchair and walked. You know, I saw it with my own eyes. You know It doesn't mean anything, someone gets up out of a wheelchair. Well, I could go on and on with testimonials that, like you say, when we give them as evangelicals or as Bible-believing Christians, we think, " Oh, that cinches it.
" But we don't realize, well, Catholics have a bunch of their own miracle stories. The Orthodox do. Jehovah's Witnesses do. I can guarantee you Mormons do. I can almost guarantee you Muslims do. They're very effective, but we shouldn't let that be our proof because somebody has a nice narrative to give us, whether it's involving a miracle or just how they believe Jesus has worked in their life. Okay, next fallacy, and this is very common, is called begging the question. And it's also known as circular reasoning.
I had mentioned it earlier. It directly presumes the conclusion, which is a question in the first place. In other words, it's supposed to prove such and such, but it starts off assuming that that's already true, the conclusion. And so the conclusion essentially appears both at the beginning of the argument and at the end of the argument. And if that's not real clear of the definition, and I would say it's not, when I give you some illustrations, then I think you'll see just how clear it is.
So this is a true-life one, okay? After I left Jehovah's Witnesses, I was talking to a relative, and I forget where we were going with the discussion, but she made this comment, " I know that this is Jehovah's organization because it's the only religion that uses God's name Jehovah. " Now, when they say God's organization or Jehovah's Organization, they mean His true church, okay? They don't use the word " church.
" So she's saying, " She knows it's the one true church because it's the only church that uses the name " Jehovah " when it refers to God. Well, that begs the question, " You haven't proven that true Christians use the name Jehovah. " And you need to prove that because nowhere, absolutely nowhere in the New Testament do Jesus and the apostles or other Christians ever refer to God or to the Father as Jehovah? There's no example. They never use that word in the New Testament.
In fact, the word does not appear in the New Testament anywhere in the Greek text. And so you're saying that's the proof that this is God's true church, but then you give a evidence that you haven't used to establish that you know the Bible shows whoever uses the name Jehovah, that they belong to the true church. You're begging the question. You assume it's his true church, and since it teaches we have to use the name Jehovah, well then that clinches it. Instead, it clinches nothing.
One I see all the time is in King James only books. Now, I myself, the Bible that I read out of is the new King James. I'm not anti-King James, but I'm anti fallacies. And I don't, even if it's a position I agree with, I'm not a King James only person, but I do you know prefer the majority text, but I don't want it defended by using fallacies. And what I'll notice in King James Only books, they'll quote a scripture from a Bible like the NIV, which is based on the critical text.
And then they say, now see, the NIV says this, however, and then they're getting ready to quote from the King James, they say, " However, the Bible says, " and then they read how that verse reads in the King James. Well, wait a minute. The whole point under discussion is which one represents or is most apt to represent the original Bible, the original autograph of what the apostles wrote.
And you've already assumed that King James is the Bible, because you say, when you quote from the NIV, we'll see it says this, but the Bible, meaning the King James, see, it's circular reasoning. You're going into a circle. So instead of proving that the King James is the authentic Bible, they've just assumed it that from the start. Or another example, the same books. They'll compare two verses.
One is taken from the critical text, which most of the time is shorter, or there is material in the King James that is not in the critical text, okay? I mean, anyone who's comparing the two knows that from the outset, and no one who supports the critical text would deny that. They would say that the things that aren't in there were not actually part of the original biblical text. But what these King James-only books will do, they'll quote a scripture from the King James and say, " So the Bible says this.
Let's say an example would be the woman who committed adultery. " And then they'll go, and that's actually in the NIV, but it's not in the critical text, okay? And they'll say, " Aha, if you'll notice that's missing from the critical text. " See what they've taken out of the Bible? But wait a minute. See, you're assuming that the King James is the Bible. All you've shown is that it doesn't contain this passage or this part of a verse, and the King James does.
Now either the King James has added something, it wouldn't be the King James, it would be the Greek manuscript it's based on, or these other manuscripts have left something out. But that's the question. Has something been added or has something been left out? But yeah, you're begging the question by saying, " Well, the Bible says this, and they've taken this out of the Bible. " You're supposed to be proving which one is truly the Bible, and you've already started off with that conclusion.
Okay, so we went over five fallacies that we'd already discussed in earlier lessons, maybe defined them a little bit more clearly today, or at least as a reminder of what they are. And then we talked about three new ones that come up very frequently. One of them is ad hominem. That's when you attack the person instead of attacking the argument that person is making. Another one is the anecdotal fallacy. That is, you don't really have proof for something or solid evidence, but you tell a story.
And yeah, it sounds convincing. It persuades somebody that, " Wow, you had this neat experience and you're Mormon. " Maybe there's something true about Mormons then if you had this neat experience. And why it's fallacious is that people in all kinds of religions have wonderful experiences, things that seem like miracles, et cetera. It doesn't prove that this is from God just because you've had this experience, even if the experience is real.
And then we talked about begging the question, and that's when you don't really prove your point, or when you start off with the conclusion, you pretend that you're gonna prove that something is true, but you already assume that. Like I use the example of the King James only, that your mind's already made up. The King James is the one true Bible. You're not gonna consider anything else. So when you're discussing it, you always refer to the King James when you're talking about the Bible.
The Bible says this or that, but the NIV says something different, but the Bible says this. See, you've already concluded that you're not proving your conclusion. You're just going in circles. You've already started off the Bible.
The King James is the one true Bible, and then you turn around and say, " See, this one isn't the Bible because it differs from the King James, and so therefore it has changed God's Word, going in circles, or a Jehovah's Witness who's already convinced this is God's organization, so they all were the only ones who claim that you have to use the name Jehovah. " See, that proves we're the one true church. Well, it proves nothing.
You have to first show that the Bible teaches that true Christians are going to refer to the Father as Jehovah. And you're going to have a very hard time proving that since, like I say, in the New Testament Greek text, Jehovah never appears. So those are just three. The next month, we're going to go down some more common fallacies. Now, we're not going to look at all fallacies. There's like, oh, I saw one list.
It was like 50, and a lot of them will never come up in biblical kind of discussions, but we're going to look at ones that are very important that do come up often in theological discussions, in biblical analysis when we're searching for spiritual truth. Well, thank you for listening, and God bless you.