A few weeks ago when I posted about being a “Skeptical Believer”, one of the comments brought up the “No True Scotsman Fallacy” . For those of you not familiar with it, or just need a refresher, it is a logical fallacy where a person tries to protect a statement/belief from counterexamples by changing the definition on the fly (ad hoc) to exclude the counterexample. For example:
Person A: “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
Person B: “But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge.”
Person A: “Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
This has lots of uses in religion, and has found its way into LDS discourse as well. The most common in religion is:
Person A: Anybody who has a testimony of the gospel and is converted will never leave the church.
Person B: Bishop Johnson bore his testimony every Sunday for five years and he left the church.
Person A: Well it wasn’t a real testimony, and he wasn’t really converted (he wasn’t a “true Mormon”)
I see variations of this ad hoc changing of the original statement used all the time when I speak up in Sunday School or HPG Elders Quorum.
Brother Know it All: “Callings are inspired by God”.
Me: “Why then did God call a Mission President that molested missionaries?”
Brother know it all: “Not all callings are inspired, people have free agency”
There are other common logical fallacies I hear at church. Affirming the consequent fallacy:
The true church will grow until it covers the earth.
The church is growing
Therefor the church is true
(This one will stop being used then the church stops growing)
Affirming conclusions from a negative premise
No good Mormon can be a democrat
Harry Reid is a democrat
Harry Reid is not a good Mormon
Even the Anti-Mormon crowd falls victim to these fallacies. Like the perfectionist fallacy.
The LDS church has a very poor track record with regard to treating LGTB fairly, Therefore the church should not be praised or even recognized for the good they do.
So what logical fallacies have you seen used, both by the church, and against it?
The Prophet Gordon B Hinckley emphasized emphatically that “Our whole strength rests on the validity of that great man (Joseph Smith). Either the things he said occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens. It’s either true or false. If it’s false, we’re engaged in a great fraud. If it’s true, it’s the most important thing in the world”. “Upon his unique character stands the validity of this Church.” Now, that’s the whole picture. It is either right or wrong, true or false, fraudulent or verifiable.”
Fallacy for the church- if BOM is true then everything the church does is!
Fallacy against- if people didn’t go to church they would spend those hours st a soup kitchen, or if they didn’t pay tithing they would donate more to charity.
What is interesting is that not only does it not take much time to consider alternatives theoretically there is quite a bit of proof both are untrue empirically. Whether it is the priesthood restriction or the most recent MTC debacle even the most strident member I knows makes room for human error.
And studies have shown that people with high religiosity are more likely to donate their time and money to charity, not less.
Tomirvine999- dang it you stole mine! 😉 though yours is certainly better in case anyone was interested in employing the no true Scotsman fallacy, your quote should put that to rest.
Straw man. This was many many years ago in seminary. Anytime someone brought up evolution, the teacher didn’t say they were wrong, but said, “I don’t think everything just appeared by accident”. This is a straw man example of evolution, an extremely weak representation of the opposing viewpoint in order to make it easier to refute.
It is important to realize that when a person uses a logical fallacy to support a conclusion, it does not mean their conclusion is wrong, merely that their stated reasoning is weak.
These are some examples of internal discussions in my head that perhaps relate to your topic.
– If I am obedient God will bless me.
– I am never fully obedient and thus not worthy of blessings.
“If” in the scriptures when tied to promises associated with commandments sometimes depresses me. I have a hard time overcoming black and white thinking in regards to blessings tied to obedience and my lack of perfection.
Doc. & Cov 1:38 – What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.
– How do I excuse the fallibility of general authorities and our prophet leaders that have spoken things previously that have been touted as doctrine, truth or directives to which I was expected to believe or comply? Past struggles to believe things that are now discounted took a lot out of me over the years. It hurts and I feel bad that I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of gospel teachings that are now not gospel and have been “excused.”
Here’s one: “The Mormon Church is White”.
” We have Black members in our congregation”.
“They’re not real Blacks”.
Novelty: “These new programs are inspired and are hastening the work”
Division: “The prophet won’t lead the Church astray. Therefore, everything the Prophet says is correct.”
Post hoc ergo propter hoc: “There are no coincidences”
The Fallacy Fallacy (Rockwell gets bonus points for beating me to this one): “X piece of anti-mormon/scientific/worldly literature contains errors. Therefore, X’s conclusions are false.”
Denying the Antecedent: “If you don’t pay your tithing, you will burn at the Second Coming” (the D&C actually expresses the obverse)
Oversimplification (A.K.A. Causal Reductionism): “How can anyone see this wonderful Universe/World/Country/human body and not believe there is a God who made it?”
Ad Hominem: “The World said do X. Therefore, don’t do X.”
And, greatest of all, Wishful Thinking: “I simply do now know how I could live my live if the Gospel were not true. Therefore, it must be true.”
As an aside, this would make a SUPERB General Conference bingo game (but to be fair, it would work just as well at any other large, corporate-style gathering).
I was just thinking about this subject because of a recent conversation I had about “Christian privilege.” The very term bothered my friend, who argued that discussing such things “creates victims” (even though, from other stereotypically Mormon things he posts about “religious freedom,” I gather that he feels a little victimized himself). I argued that every religion can have tribal tendencies, so religious minorities are going to experience religious discrimination/insensitivity more. He responded that such discriminatory behavior wasn’t Christian. By that reasoning, Christians literally can do no wrong, because once they do, they are no longer Christian.
It’s a bit like when it’s pointed out that priesthood leaders can abuse their priesthood, and the rebuttal is D&C 121, “amen to the priesthood of that man” — so he’s not a “true” priesthood holder, so it’s not possible to abuse the priesthood.
Spinning disadvantages into advantages seems to happen a lot in our denomination. We have smaller congregations which limits our impact in the community, so church leadership emphasizes the strengths of being small, without acknowledging the reasons we are small. Which is a deflection.
Here’s another Fallacy implied by many bloggers:
You’re not a true (enlightened) Mormon unless you’ve found something to protest against in the Church.
Some Protestants say once you accept Jesus as your Savior you are saved, you are guaranteed to go to heaven.The salvation changes your heart so you will do good. Because you desire to do good, you will be compelled internally to do good because you are good.
(We Mormons make and keep covenants to eventually prove worthy of salvation/exaltation.
Protestants are saved without merit, the covenant already made and fulfilled; and this impels them to good works.)
But wait a minute, thus and such minister was saved and he did all these good things and then he turned out to be a serial rapist. What the hell happened?
Ah, but then he was never saved in the first place. He was faking it or fooling himself.
***
I might suggest we have a similar problem with the Second Anointing. I would be surprised if LTM President Joseph Bishop didn’t have these blessings. Tom Phillips comes to mind. John D. Lee who was convicted of the Mountain Meadows Massacre had these blessings; and he had them taken away; and had them restored 100 years later for unknown reasons. I know that Isaac Haight who master mined it was never prosecuted, had these blessings revoked, and later restored before he died. Richard Lyman , the last apostle to be excommunicated had his second anointing revoked and later restored, even though he was not allowed to resume being an apostle. Good enough to be guaranteed to be a God in the next life, but not good enough to resume being an apostle in this one? What does that imply about the hierarchy of Mormon heaven?
Once you have been given these blessings you have the power of discernment, or direct access to the mind of God. Lesser humans really have nothing to tell you of any importance. You listen to them to humor them and help them repent. Of course, you have no need of repentance. I believe that this line of thinking is far too influencial at the top level and is one of the many ways the prophets are leading the church astray. I think of it as similar to the logical flaw of “argument from authority,” except turbo-charged as you set yourself up as the authority instead of another.
BTW, knowing serious problems in the LDS church doesn’t enlighten me. This rather makes me feel benighted, discouraged, confused, hopeless, uncharitable, angry and rebellious.
People do commit fallacies and occasionally its important to point them out. But playing fallacy cop is usually another way to avoid dealing with an opponents argument. I wrote a post about it here not too long ago because I tended to see the same patterns over and over again. Its not an accident that fallacy cop is the first on the list. If I spend time making an argument, and somebody instead wants to move the discussion to supposed fallacies I find its not a very good use of my time.
Generally, when somebody does nothing to engage my argument, but makes me spend time on some triviality (such as ignoring a post on breast plates to make cavalier and sweeping dismissals of the BoM), they aren’t very sincere. http://mormonwar.blogspot.com/2017/03/of-punks-and-posers.html
Morgan2205- to be on all sides of this issue, I actually agree with you too. Everyone makes fallacious arguments yet we all also tend to get high and mighty when someone from a different point of view employs a fallacy. Which is too bad. When people focus on issues and not whose team is scoring points, pointing out fallacies can be useful.
That’s the whole reason to point out fallacies though; it reminds people that their statement is really weak because of this fallacy. It theoretically should improve conversations by getting back to the real issue.
Mormons are particularly prone to the “Appeal to Authority” fallacy. Authority A says XYZ do it must be true. The authority is in tough order of presumed credibility, a canonical book, a named general authority, a non canonical book sold in Desert Book, an unnamed general authority, or someone’s former mission president/stake president/etc. In fact, under the logic of D&C’s “Whether by my voice or by the voice of my servants it if the same”, one might argue that an appeal to the prophetic authority is not actually a fallacy.
I sympathize with both Morgan and Rebecca: I don’t want fallacy cops to end the argument, but I do want fallacies to be brought to my attention in order to improve the reasoning in an argument. I hope to be gracious enough to hear others when they point out fallacies that I use, although if I’m emotionally invested in the argument it may be difficult. On the other hand, if someone is only addressing fallacies and not arguing the meat of the issue, the discussion will not progress.
Sorry for my typos. *Sigh*
Mike I’d love a reference on the fullness of the priesthood being revoked.
I’ve never seen a reference to that unless you are equivocating excommunication.
how bout this one:
The Holy Ghost confirms the truth by giving you good feelings.
So if you have good feelings about church teachings, the BOM, etc., you can know they are true.
And the HG cannot confirm the church is not true.
Eugene – But isn’t that what readers of the BOM are told to do?
Moroni 10:4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are *NOT* true… ?
JPV:
I think you can find sources on the Internet for John D. Lee. They might not be credible. What constitutes a “source?” That is usually where people part ways.
The only source I know for Isaac C Haight is family tradition.
But does that really matter as much as current people having the second anointing and how it might affect them? Those pioneers were a rather eccentric lot and can be ignored in some matters easily.
But today, people like Joseph Bishop, or Philander Smartt ( I am not making that name up), or more earthshaking, Mitt Romney. (You know, Obama’s October surprise he didn’t use because he believed the same polls that Hillary believed). I personally am hoping MItt will win the seat for the US Senate representing Utah, take off the mittens and lead the charge to impeach Trump. (At least he doesn’t have either his first or second anointing, for this we can be thankful). But will Mitt face character assassination in the process? Seems likely.
The BOM is true, therefore JS is a true prophet, therefore the church he reorganized is true, therefore the prophet today is true.
If ‘A’ is ‘true’, then extrapolate that to mean that ‘B’ is true as well.
If you have received any kind of spiritual witness then you can build a skyscraper upon that single cornerstone.
Exactly, LDS Scoutmaster. The Community of Christ is God’s One True Church.
“Harry Reid is not a good Mormon”
So it seems.
Fallacies do not invalidate the conclusion. A conclusion can still be true, but cannot be proven to be true by a fallacious argument. One also cannot impute a false conclusion just because the logic is faulty, but that is what many people (IMO) conclude.
Rockwell writes “Mormons are particularly prone to the Appeal to Authority fallacy. Authority A says XYZ so it must be true.”
Appeal to authority is fallacious only the case that the authority is not actually the author of the claim in the first place. Joseph Smith, for instance, is undeniably the authority of the Book of Mormon as also its author. Who else is more authoritative?
Essentially all of any religion is an appeal to authority,
Appeal to authority is fallacious when the authority does not have the relevant expertise. When a church member argues a controversial claim outside of the area of their expertise, about the age of the Earth, the nature of same sex attraction or some other topic, and they base it on either their own revelation or someone else’s authority, I would consider that a fallacious appeal to authority, especially when not based on something that has not been agreed by common consent.
A big question would be whether it is an appeal to authority to rely on the words of a prophet or other leader who is within the like of authority and proper stewardship and claims to speak by inspiration. I’ll leave that question for other people.
I think when I said that Mormons are particularly susceptible to appeal to authority, I may have been think of all the times when I have heard something like “oh I heard that a general authority said that … “. Sometimes the GA is named, often he isn’t, but the conclusion is generally given more credence than is warranted.
Mike writes “MItt will win the seat for the US Senate representing Utah, take off the mittens and lead the charge to impeach Trump.”
Mitt would be the one to do it, but on what charge? It has to be something more than you don’t like him.