A House Built on Fallacies

Here are just a few examples of the kinds of fallacious dub arguments we've heard and used ourselves when we were dubs.

Heck, the WHOLE DARN RELIGION is nothing but a series of fallacious arguments!

ad hominem - (attack the arguer, not the argument)

"Since apostates have abandoned Jehovah, they are of their father the Devil and nothing they say can be trusted."

appeal to ignorance - (if an assertion has not been disproved, it has to be correct.)

"No one can prove Jehovah doesn't exist. Therefore, he must exist."

argument from omniscience - (the arguer tries to assert it knows everyone's actions or beliefs)

"All apostates are out to destroy Jehovah's earthly organization." (Many apostates don't give a rat about dubs!)

appeal to tradition - (people have believed something for a long time, so therefore it has to be true)

"Because of the rich spiritual heritage of Jehovah's organization, we can be sure our beliefs in these last days are approved by Jehovah himself." (Or as Mark Twain might say, "if millions of people over a hundred years have believed a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing.")

appeal to authority (citing a dubious "authority" to help confirm the argument)

"A noted scientific journal stated that blah, blah, blah."

(That unnamed "scientific" journal was Popular Mechanics! The WTS is notorious for using this kind of argument and not citing the source. In one example, the WTS cited an "authority" that when tracked down, turned out to be Reader's Digest! In another, it cited a newspaper which stated how much earthquakes have increased in the 20th century. It turns out that the newspaper's source for its information was taken from the Awake! magazine!)

argumentum ad baculum (using fear as the basis of an argument)

"Those who don't come into the safety of the Spiritual Ark will soon be destroyed by Jehovah at Armageddon."

circular reasoning or begging the question (the assertion assumes the conclusion)

"Jehovah has an earthly visible organization and we must follow it, because this organization was appointed by Jehovah himself."

confirmation bias (using only some examples that confirm an argument, but ignoring all others that disprove it)

"Sister Jones wanted to pioneer, but didn't have a car, so she prayed to Jehovah for help. Within 2 weeks she had herself a car. So you see, Jehovah does answer our sincere prayers." (While Pioneer Sister Jones was praying for a car, Pioneer Sister Smith was praying for her life right before she was brutally raped and murdered.)

loaded question (any answer to a question will imply agreement to it)

"Those like you who left the organization hate the organization and Jehovah. And you haven't stopped hating Jehovah either, have you? (A "yes" answer implies the person hated Jehovah in the past. A "no" answer implies the person continues to hate Jehovah)

non sequitur (the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the assertions)

"The Bible states that crime would rise during the last days and so it has. Therefore, we can confidently say crime will continue to rise even further until it is so far out of hand that Jehovah will have to destroy the wicked at Armageddon."

red herring (diverting the argument by changing the subject)

Opponent: "None of your JW predictions have come to pass."

dub: "The Bible says that there would be many ridiculers in the last days, and people like you prove the Bible to be true."

(The argument was about JW predictions, NOT about ridiculers.)



slippery slope (unproven adverse consequence will occur if something happens)

"Those who leave safety of Jehovah's visible organization soon degenerate into debauchery, including adultery, crime and drugs."

special pleading (the one making the assertion wants an exception made [which he cannot reasonably justify] to standards he applies to everyone else)

"Jehovah gave to Bible to all of mankind so they could read it and gain his favor, but only Jehovah's Witnesses are able to understand the true meaning of the Bible."

straw man (misrepresenting the argument and then attacking the new argument)

Opponent: "The policies and doctrines of the WTS are harsh and unreasonable."

dub: "It is hard to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses and many people are unwilling to put in the hard work it takes to be one of us. The Bible says that lazy people will not receive salvation."

(The opponent was talking about harsh and unreasonable doctrines, NOT hard work.)

false dilemma (assuming there are only two possibilites when there could be more)

"You've been studying the Bible with me for over a year now. It's now time for you to decide if you want to become one of Jehovah's Witnesses or receive eternal destruction from Jehovah."

questionable cause (if b happened after a, then a must have caused b)

"Brother Russell said the Gentile Times would end in 1914. World War I started in 1914. Therefore we know the Gentile Times Ended in 1914."

(The fallacy is that the dub thinks WWI was caused by the ending of the Gentile Times, when there are many other possibilities for its cause.)

subjectivist fallacy (a claim that what is true for everyone else is not true for the arguer)

dub: "Lying is wrong and the Bible says liars will not enter the Kingdom of God."

opponent: "But you lie to your enemies."

dub: "Jehovah allows his chosen people to lie to their enemies."

the undistributed middle

"All true Christians preach the Kingdom message."

"All Jehovah's Witnesses preach the Kingdom message."

"Therefore, all Jehovah's Witnesses are true Christians."

In this case "true Christians" has not been defined as to all the things it includes. It may also include the requirement that to be a "true Christian" one must have to show charity towards others, and so forth.

A more obvious example would be:

"All humans have two legs."

"All ostriches have two legs."

"Therefore, all humans are ostriches."

The set called "two legs" may contain more animals than just humans and ostriches. Likewise, the set called "true Christians" may contain more requirements than just preaching the Kingdom message.

Farkel

Howdy, Farkel

An amazing thing about the average JW is that they constantly infer they are reasonable and say they seek reasonable conclusions yet when it comes to a command of the known laws of reason (logic) they are totally oblivious! Forget whether the average Joe Publisher has any command of the known laws of logic, my experience is they lack any familiarity with the basic laws governing logical development! This absence turns their oft-repeated mantra "Let's be reasonable" into an oxymoron. By "Let's be reasonable" they do not mean, "Let's apply the known laws of logic." They mean accept what I believe or let's end the discussion.

Once during discussion about the consequences of neighborly love, I said to a fellow elder about an argument he offered, "Your presentation is an enthymeme." He replied, "There is no reason to use vulgar language!"

Marvin Shilmer

the rules of logic are difficult enough, but there is also hidden assumptions to deal with...

for example

JWs believe that they will be, if they die now, raised from the dead....

JWs believe that they will cease to exist but for a memory in the mind of God at their death, they will be dead souls, having no eternal anything that survives them... the spirit is seen as electricity which vanishes from their lifeless body at death, their soul is seen as the whole living package which now has no life and thus empty of anything that can be called them....

the assumptions most JWs have is that some part of them really does still exist and will come back to life....

otherwise why worry about a copy of you enjoying paradise when the original is dead, buried and long gone?

Hello, Zen Nudist

It is a philosophical question you have raised about what it means to be resurrected. One line of thought is that we are what we make ourselves, in which case if something of us fails to survive death then it would seem no more than a copy of us can be resurrected. But another line of thought is that we are what God says we are, in which case what God resurrects is exactly what died, which means what is resurrected is not a copy.

If a person believes in an omnipotent God then he has to believe that everything about a person can cease to exist but that God can raise this nonexistent person back. This is possible by virtue of omnipotence, which means God has the power to literally do whatever he wants.

If a person does not believe in God or a resurrection then the whole question is purely an academic philosophical exercise.

Marvin Shilmer

definitions (factoid) noun: something resembling a fact; unverified (often invented) information that is given credibility because it appeared in print (ieWatchtower publications)

Has anyone done an analysis of the logical fallacies of the Reasoning book.  I know that there have been refutation of specific claims in the book, but it would be very useful to show that WT-style "reasoning" as promoted in the self-styled Reasoning book is fallacious....

Hi Farkel.  That's great info.  I hadn't really thought much about fallacies and the principles of logic until after I started figuring out this JW stuff was not trustworthy.  I can't really say I have a good grasp on good/bad logic yet, I'm only beginning to understand it.  The list you made with the examples we would always hear is really great.  Thanks.

A house built on Fallacies, well that would certainly be a house built on posts like they do those beach houses and of course the phal ... oh ... wait ... fallacies.

Never mind.

 

That's hysterical.  I once asked my JW friend why the Awake and WatchTower magazines have very little references...they told me that it is to save space, but that "references were available upon request"... (I kid you not.. it sounded like a resume).

Good show, Farkel!!!

This was on my list to track down.  Thanks you for saving me the legwork

Mustang

Fallacy Tutorial Pro 3.0

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

Marvin,

That sounds like a re-creation rather than a resurrection.

Wow Farkel, it sounds worse put into a list and is all grouped together. Mind boggling

Great list!  thanks.  It's always good to understand a little bit more of what to expect when tangling with Tower reasoning!

 

Great topic Farkel,

Another thing I've noticed about JW's is that when they are caught using one or more of these fallacious devices they dismiss the rules of logical argumentation as some sort of juvenile code of conduct for a high school debate team.

It doesn't matter what the subject is though. If you resort to this kind of bullshit in a paper, you run a very good chance of having the professor tear you a new one right in front of the entire class.  These aren't rules of debate, they're rules of rational thought.  Without them, we would still be in the dark ages.

**"Sister Jones wanted to pioneer, but didn't have a car, so she prayed to Jehovah for help. Within 2 weeks she had herself a car. So you see, Jehovah does answer our sincere prayers." (While Pioneer Sister Jones was praying for a car, Pioneer Sister Smith was praying for her life right before she was brutally raped and murdered.)

This business of prayer ALWAYS confused me. The WTS plays it both ways. When a JW's prayer "isn't answered"---it's a "no". When one IS answered, it means Jehovah had blessed them.

And of course, we ALL know, that Jehovah doesn't even HEAR the prayers uttered by nonJWs!

**Opponent: "None of your JW predictions have come to pass."

**dub: "The Bible says that there would be many ridiculers in the last days, and people like you prove the Bible to be true."

I just pointed this out to someone today, on another forum---that "not ONE of the dates for the "end" has come true---and that this makes the WTS a false prophet.

His answer to me was.........."just because it hasn't happened YET---does not mean that the WTS was wrong!It meant that this will still happen in the future---so the WTS "hasn't been wrong yet"!

I'm STILL shaking my head over that one, LOL!

Great post, BTW, Fark!

hugs,

Annie

great piece....you get a B in logic class.....i think the slippery slope, ad hoc and ad hominem are the big three the org uses to trick the weak minded

Thank you, Farkel!

Great post.  I have wanted this sort of a logical fallacy 'cheat sheet' for some time.  How cool that you made one! 

Thanks for the time you put into this.

This should be one of the posts that all newbies read. TD, so true!  --yet, so hard for JWs to understand...

-LisaBObeesa