Being called out

Sometimes we get called out and have to answer for our actions

OriginalTeacherMom responds to my video on youtube….. RE: Christian answers to those outside the faith 4 of 18 


"Are you not contradicting yourself with your video Church Felled Away! 

Maybe you need to practice what you preach! Didn't you resort to a personal attack in that video. 

I had been in church all my life and call me naive but had never seen "Christians"(sic) behave as such! 

If your Bible teaches you to behave in such a manner then I don't want any part it!
"

Hi OTM, 
 Thank you for viewing my videos and critiquing them. I really do appreciate it. I can understand your confusion on this subject. A lot of people misunderstand what I was doing because of the Church Felleded Away title of the video. I have thought about this and decided to change the title. For the first month of the video nobody knew that the method I was using in the video was anything more than a subjective Solo Scripturist hermeneutic against the deity of Christ. It wasn't until someone noticed the title and brought it to your husbands' attention (I assume) and decided it was an attack on him. Clearly it was not. It was an attack on bad hermeneutics as stated in the ending slide. My point was to show how absurd this method of study is when brought to its logical conclusion (reducto ad absurdum). In so far as that you can make the bible say or do anything you want and the true meaning is really meaningless.

This is very different than an ad hominem or personal attack. If I were to use this argumentation I would say something like, "Churchfellaway is an idiot. Look a how freakin' stupid he is. This is so simple that it actually hurts my head to think down to his level." Maybe I would hold up a picture of him and call him a clown or a fool. Call him a child. I think you get the idea. This type of attack stems from an argumentum ad verecundiam. Which is that they are the only ones who have the ability to be right because of the authority they may posses or appeal to. In your husbands' case, he claims to be the authority on all matters of faith and practice. His understanding alone of God is the measuring rod of all truth on the subject.

Never have I once called him any names or even mentioned who he was in the CFA video. In my answers section I name him and represent his views. If you've watched the whole thing you'll see that I dealt with his "John 1" video by leaving it in its entirety.

In Part 4 I showed how he belittles people in order to make their arguments seem worthless by making them seem worthless. It's not just him. Lots of people do this on Youtube and other arenas when disagreeing. By stating that I am contradicting myself between these two videos you're either trying to do one of two things.

1. You just want to tell me off for attacking someone.

The irony of this is that you're attacking me and making the claim that I am not a real "Christian" because I behave in such a way. If an essential to salvation was moral consistency on every level, no one would be saved ever. What makes someone a Christian is what they believe, not the consistency of their actions. Sinful human nature is what it is.

2. Show that my arguments are untrue based on these inconsistencies.

This form of argument is called the Ad Hominem Tu Quoque, also known as the "You too fallacy". The fact that my arguments seem inconsistent would not negate them on this topic. It would only make me a hypocrite and not undermine the truth of the statement. Just call into question to what degree I agree with what I've said. Here is the basic form of this argument:

Person A makes claim X
Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
Therefore X is false.

A modern illustration would be this:

Person A says abortion is wrong.
Person A votes for and supports those who promote and support abortion.
Abortion is not wrong

This kind of argument says nothing about the nature of the subject at hand, but is used to dismiss the fact by not dealing with it.

I would like to think that of these two options you wrote to me because of the former than latter. This would be understandable and I'd rather like to think this than what the alternative would be. The alternative is that this is another way to justify condemning all religious Christian institutions and reinforce the fact that you have made the right decision in abandoning the historic Christian faith. Thus, based on this minor anthropological inconsistency, you can dismiss any argument made by anyone who claims to have the same faith I do and dismiss what I have to say on any subject, simply due to the fact that I have said it. This is a hasty generalization.

I hope this finds you well. Thanks for taking the time to write to me.