Well, everyone should have received a handout. If you have not, I have some extra ones here. Apologize for what looks like smudging on the paper. I think that's from our copy machine. Probably needs a little bit of work. Going to take a look at that. But tonight we're going to have a little bit of a different kind of a lesson. One might even say that tonight is somewhat of a something that you'd experience maybe in a high school or college classroom than you would expect to get in a Bible study. Cody, go set up the sound for your mom so she can hear. Like I said, tonight is going to be It's alright. Because tonight we're going to talk about how to spot a bad argument. How to spot or how to identify a bad argument. Over the last few weeks we have been discussing the subject of apologetics. You all know that. What does apologetics mean? What's that? making a defense of the faith. Christian apologetics is making a defense of the faith that comes from the scriptures that tell us that we are to always be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us and yet to do so with gentleness and reverence. Right? Sanctifying the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts when we do so. We've been talking about, specifically, Darwinian evolution, because as it stands in our day, that just happens to be one of the great arguments that's happening against the Bible and against the church, is that God didn't create man. Nature, pure, undirected nature, brought about all the life and diversity that is in the world. And so, that's what we often have to deal with when we're speaking to people in the world, is arguments of Darwinian evolution. In our last lesson, we talked about arguments we shouldn't use. And I said we should never use an argument that is untrue. We should never use an argument we don't understand and that we should never use an argument that is irrelevant. Shouldn't use an argument that's untrue. Shouldn't use an argument we don't understand and shouldn't use an argument that's irrelevant. and we said that if the only way we can talk about something is by misrepresenting it then we either don't care about the issue or we don't care about the person we're talking to we certainly don't care about Christ because he said I am the way the truth and the life he added I am the truth in that statement he didn't just say I'm the way the life he said I'm the way the truth in the life so if we care about Jesus we have to care about the truth so tonight we're going to build on what we started last time by looking at how to identify a bad argument. At the end of last week's lesson, I mentioned something called the straw man fallacy. Do you guys remember me mentioning the straw man fallacy? How many of you remember last week? How many of you remember what you had for dinner tonight? Some of us don't remember much. I mentioned the straw man fallacy at the end of last week's lesson and that was sort of the inspiration for tonight. Because straw man fallacy is only one of many different ways that people make bad arguments. And by the way, the straw man fallacy means that you say that this is what someone believes and you attribute a belief to them just for the sole purpose of tearing it apart. or burning it. That's the idea. You're building a straw man just to set it on fire. And remember I said some of the examples might be, well you Christians, you don't believe in science. Well that's a straw man argument. You're making an argument that's not true. You're building the straw man just to set it on fire. You understand? So that's one type of logical fallacy. A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning. And being able to identify logical fallacies in the arguments of others is important. But I want to add this, being able to identify your own logical fallacies is even more important. It's one thing to be able to say, yeah, what he's saying is wrong, but do you know what you're saying is right? Have you thought through your arguments? Have you thought through, and by the way, how many of you like to argue? Now don't you be, don't sit there like some very pious folks. I know some folks, at least some of y'all like to argue. Now maybe not argue in the negative, and by the way, okay, By the way, let me say this, not all arguing is bad. Tonight I'm going to teach you how to argue. We're going to talk about how to argue. And not in the bad way. Making an argument is what we're doing. In fact, the Bible says we destroy arguments. We take every thought captive to Christ. We destroy arguments. We go in and we actually make a defense that's intended to deal with the arguments of our opponents. Which means we make a better argument than what they're making. A more sound, a more reasonable, a more logical argument. Unfortunately, making bad arguments is very common in our world today. Logical fallacies are everywhere. Politicians, journalists, celebrities, and even those who represent the academic elite are very often guilty of using bad logic and poor arguments to defend their positions. And this is compounded by the fact that social media, like Twitter, only allows a certain number of letters. It was, for years, you could only put 140 characters on Twitter. That included all the letters and spaces. There ain't been so much you can say in 140 characters. So, very little was said on Twitter, but it got very big attention. Now it's 280, they've doubled it. Even still, 280 characters is barely a paragraph. It's not enough room to create a cogent, reasonable argument. But it is the place where even our president makes it his point to go on and argue. This is not how you do it! I'm not making any political positions except that ain't the way you argue. But that's how people think argument works. Jacqueline Leighton in the Journal of Experimental Education. By the way, this is actually from a paper I wrote in college. I wrote a paper on college defending the need for logic and philosophy to be taught at the high school level. because I said we don't teach logic and philosophy until college and even then we don't teach it well. So by the time kids get to college they are taught what to think not how to think and by the time they get to college they don't know how to decide or how to think through what the professor is saying. So I think we should be teaching logic and philosophy at the grade school level. By the way, that's not my lesson, but I wrote a paper defending that in college. My degree is in social science, by the way, my secular degree. So I wrote defending that, and this is what one of the ladies that I studied, one of the articles she wrote, she said this, quote, most American middle and high schools have no place in their curriculum for courses in philosophy and logic. As a result, many are graduating students who lack strong deductive reasoning skills. Our kids don't know how to think. As a result, our kids don't know how to reason. And I'm not saying our kids like you guys. I'm saying in general American culture. They don't know how to think. They don't know how to reason. They don't know how to argue with anything more than their emotions. and there was one man, and I can't think of his name right now, but he's a pretty well-known doctor, politician, and doctor, and he said, the problem is not that little Johnny doesn't know how to think, the problem is little Johnny only knows how to feel, and he thinks that's thinking. He thinks his feelings are thinking, and it's not the same thing. Our feelings are often the most unreasonable things we have. and yet we think our feelings are thinking and it's not. So part of this tonight is about the idea of thinking through an argument, reasoning to a conclusion. Ought we be able to do that? Well, let me ask you, on your paper it says, why do we make arguments? Why do we make arguments? I'm going to give you a few Bible verses. One, you could write down 1 Peter 3.15, that's the one that says, we've got to be ready to make a defense. Well, just like I said earlier, a defense against what? A defense against an argument. Someone asks you for the hope that's within you, you've got to be able to defend that. You've got to make a defense against someone who thinks you shouldn't have that hope. But the second verse I want you to write down is Acts 17, verses 1-3. Acts chapter 17, verses 1-3. And you remember, I just got done preaching through Acts earlier this year. In Acts 17, the Apostle Paul is traveling. I'll just read it. It says, Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And according to Paul's custom, he went to them for three Sabbaths and reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, saying this, Jesus, who I am proclaiming to you, is the Christ. It says he reasoned, he explained, and he gave evidence of his position. And then in chapter 18 of Acts, chapter 18 verse 4, it says he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. What was Paul doing? Was he just sitting there going, well you have your opinion, I have mine. We're all right, you can be right, and I'll be right, and you might be wrong, and we would just all join hands and sing Kumbaya. No! Paul went in and he reasoned, and he gave evidences with the goal of persuasion. He didn't just want to proclaim, he wanted to proclaim and persuade. That word persuade. Apathan is the Greek used there for the word pathos. It means to encourage or induce one to believe by your words. To talk someone into it. Now we know that ultimately by the Spirit is how someone gets saved. You can't talk somebody into believing in Jesus. We know that. Right? I mean, you can't reason with someone enough to make them believe in Jesus. But you certainly... You certainly can reason with them that Jesus is the Christ, and tell them who He is, and the Holy Spirit can use that argument as a way to open the heart of a believer. I've seen it happen. I've seen people who didn't believe in Jesus, and they heard a compelling voice proclaiming Christ. And through the compelling voice, the Spirit opened their heart, and through that, they believed. That's what we call a means. See, God ordains the end, but He also ordains the means to an end. Right? I always say, we believe that babies come by ordination of Almighty God. But there was something that had to happen before that baby came, just a little nine months earlier. And that's part of the means for that end. The only one that ever came without that was Jesus. And everybody else had that means to bring about the end, the same way when we talk about reasoning. We reason with the purpose of persuasion, knowing that it's the Spirit who's going to actually do the job. Exactly. He proclaimed the truth and he reasoned with them from the scriptures and 3,000 people were, their hearts were opened and they believed. So, this is why I love, and one more verse for you, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 20 says, Therefore we are ambassadors of Christ, God making His appeal through us. And then he says this, we implore you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. That's the language of persuasion. I implore you to be reconciled to God. And I'm an ambassador for Christ. I'm speaking on his behalf, in his stead, for him here. So that's why we do it. That's the purpose of making an argument, is we make our arguments as ambassadors for Christ, and if we're making them, to appeal to the heart and persuade men to trust Christ as Savior, then we must always make good arguments. We must always make good arguments and avoid bad arguments. So what I want to do tonight is outline some of the most common ways people make bad arguments. So we can avoid them. and it doesn't hurt sometimes to point it out when the other guy's using them. Now you don't got to poke him, hey you're using the straw man fallacy, I don't necessarily recommend that, but you can at least say what you're saying isn't true and this is why, or what you're saying doesn't make sense or isn't logically accurate and here's why. Alright, so let's look now, and I want to make sure I'm going through the outline. I have a different set of notes than you guys, so I'll make sure I don't skip anything. We'll look at how arguments work. Looking at how arguments work. An argument is a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others, that's the blank, persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong. That's what an argument is. An argument is a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or an idea is right or wrong. So the word there is persuading. That blank. An argument which contains a logical fallacy is an invalid argument. So an argument is giving a reason to persuade someone to take action or believe something and a logical fallacy makes the argument invalid. There are two types of logical fallacies. The first is called a formal fallacy. So on your sheet you can write in the next blank where it says there are two types of fallacies. The first one is a formal fallacy. A formal fallacy is an error in the form of an argument, in the structure of the argument. I'm going to give you some examples to help make these make sense, and I don't want you to go to sleep tonight. I don't want to bore anyone. This is a little heavy, but there's no one here that this is above your head. I promise. Here's an argument that is a formal, an accurate argument, and it's a formal argument. All men are mortal. Jack Bunning is a man. Therefore, Jack Bunning is mortal. Now, he looks good for his age, but we would all agree with that argument, wouldn't we? Because it's based on what we call deductive reasoning. A deductive reasoning argument is, if A, rather, yeah, I can't even think of it in my mind, what is it, say it again? Exactly, thank you, that's what I was trying to get out, I just couldn't get it out. So Jack is, all men are mortal, Jack's a man, so Jack is mortal. That's a logical argument. Here's a bad argument based on the same structure. Some Muslims are terrorists. My neighbor is a Muslim, therefore my neighbor is a terrorist. Do you see where the disconnect comes in? Do you see why that's not a valid argument? Because one does not necessarily follow the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow the premise. You have two premises. Some Muslims are terrorists and my neighbor is a Muslim. Therefore. There is no therefore. There is no way to make a therefore from that statement. A lot of people do. A lot of people do, but that's the argument. How about this? What if I said all humans have skin? All dogs have skin, therefore all dogs are human. But you see, right? All humans have skin, all dogs have skin, therefore all dogs are human. We know that's not a good argument because that doesn't flow one to the next. Now, an argument can be technically valid and still wrong. Let me explain. If I said all men are green, Dale Springer is a man, therefore Dale Springer is green. That's a valid argument. It's false, but it's valid because it If A is true and B is true, then C is true also. If all men are green and if Dale Springer is a man, by necessity Dale Springer must be green. What's the problem with that argument? All men aren't green, right? So this argument is what we call an informal fallacy. Obviously you knew that was coming because if there's a formal fallacy there must be an informal fallacy. This means it's not an error in the form of the argument, but rather in the information contained within the argument. It's not a formal or structural problem with the argument, it is with the content of the argument. That's where most come in. Not all. If you hear a formal argument you know right away But informal arguments are sneakier. People give false information and they use those, you know, all gun owners love violence. Paul Turner's a gun owner. Well, you know what that means, right? You see what I'm saying, right? That's a bad argument, but they do that, don't they? Don't people say that? Well, everybody who owns a gun thinks he's Superman. You own a gun, you must think he's a cop. thinks he's a vigilante, right? That's how bad arguments happen. It puts in false information where we don't often recognize it as false, or we can't at that time prove it as false, and it sneaks into the conversation. So that's just a few That's formal and informal fallacies. We're going to deal mostly with informal fallacies tonight. I'm going to give you a list. Isn't that what's on your sheet? Yeah. The list I'm going to give you, these are common informal fallacies. Now I don't have the ability to go through them all. Number one, I'm not smart enough to know them all. Number two, even if I were smart enough to know them all, I wouldn't have time to go through them all, and I don't think I want to spend seven, eight, ten weeks going through all the informal fallacies. So I'm going to give you some examples of some, and then I'm going to give you a book that you can read if you're interested. At the end of your page, you see where it says, for more read Discerning Truth by Dr. Jason Lyle, if you have a Kindle, or even if you just have a computer, you can get the Kindle app. It's $2.99 on Kindle. You can buy it from Amazon. I read it on the plane. It's not a hard read, and he goes through a lot more than I'm going to get to go through tonight. So if you're interested in this subject, there you go. Go have a ball. But for tonight, we'll go through just a few. I picked these out not at random, but I picked these out strategically because I think these are the ones that I hear the most. The first one is called ad hominem. Ad hominem. H-O-M-I-N-E-M. If you want to write out beside that, because that's Latin, you can write a personal attack. A personal attack. The Latin actually means to the man or to the person, ad hominem, but we would, in layman's term, just simply use the term personal attack This happens when the character or the motive of an individual is made the focus of the argument rather than the subject of the argument itself. Well, I'll give you an example. Recently, Ray Comfort, who we've all seen videos of Ray and he's an evangelist, Ray Comfort did a debate with an atheist. And it was online. Interestingly enough, things that couldn't have happened 20 years ago happen a lot now. And they were having an online debate. The man who he was debating with wrote his response to the debate. It was like an article responding to the debate. In the very first paragraph, he says, recently I had the opportunity to debate Ray Comfort. You all know Ray Comfort, the banana man, the imp. Oh no, the warlock to the imp of Kirk Cameron. So within the first sentence, he identifies him as the banana man, which most of you probably don't know what that is, but years ago, Ray made an argument about a banana, and later it was scientifically shown that it was a bad argument. Ray come out, made a joke about it, it was fine. But now that's a huge thing. He's known amongst people as the banana man, because he made a bad banana argument. But more importantly, they called him a warlock, to the imp who is Kirk Cameron. Not even an attempt to be fair, not even an attempt to be honest, rather poisoning the well. And I see this a lot. People will say, you know, there's this new guy who's running for office and don't listen to what he has to say, know that he's a jerk. I mean, immediately, you just say, you know, you just know that you're going to disagree with him. We call that poisoning the well. That happens a lot theologically. People will say, well I won't listen to him because my friend told me he's not good. Right? Not going to look into it myself. But ad hominem attacks are personal attacks. Sometimes ad hominem attacks aren't logical fallacies, and let me just make this point. Let's say an argument, if the truth of an argument relies on the truthfulness of the person making the argument rather than known facts, then pointing out that the person has lied before isn't necessarily an ad hominem attack. It's part of the necessary information. Okay? So let's say you and I are having an argument, Jackie, and you're a known liar, which I know you're not, so I'm using you for this example, and I say, well, Jackie, we know in the past you've had trouble with the truth. That's not necessarily an ad hominem attack. That's pointing out a reality. Okay? Now, You say, well, isn't there somewhat of a fine line there? Yes, there is. Because in that attempt, I'm not trying to discredit you by simply saying that's untrue. I'm saying that we know that you've had an issue with the truth in the past. You ever had a child that had an issue with telling you the truth? Yes, yes, go ahead. I don't I don't mean to laugh but I yeah I tell people don't ever if you if you if you if you love me don't read the comments on our YouTube channel Because my wife gets so upset. Because it's all personal attacks, whether it's about my weight or whether what I look like, which I know it's, this is, you know, what are you going to do? But that's, you know that they've lost. You know they have nothing to say if all they have to say is something personal that's irrelevant and meaningless. Here's a few examples, just if you want to write some down. How about this? If you don't believe in evolution, you're just a moron. That's an ad hominem attack. That's not attempting to defend evolution, that's attempting to discredit you by saying something about you personally. Well, you believe in Jesus because you were raised in a Christian home. That's a subtle ad hominem because that's making the statement that you didn't arrive to your belief in Jesus by reason, you were simply forced into your belief in Jesus by your overbearing or whatever Christian religious parents. It assumes something about you that's not necessarily true, and it attacks you for it. That's ad hominem. It's subtle, but it is a form of ad hominem. Or the same could be said, well, the pastor only argues for the Bible because that's what he gets paid to do. That's a subtle form of ad hominem. He's only doing it because he's making money. Right? That's an unproven argument used to attack the character of the person making the argument rather than the issue or the argument. Those are subtle. Now, like I said, calling people names, that's immediate. We know that's ad hominem, but sometimes it sneaks in in other ways. And I want to say this. Unfortunately, Christians are bad at this too. We have at times been given over to bad arguments. And I'm not gonna let us just get away with it because we're all on the same team. That wouldn't be fair. I'll give you an example. And you may want to throw tomatoes at me, but just listen. Bill Nye is a TV personality. He had a show called Bill Nye the Science Guy. A couple years ago, he debated Ken Ham on the subject of creation versus evolution, and since then, he has become the mouthpiece for the intellectual left. Him and Neil deGrasse Tyson are some of the most vocal people regarding the anti-scientific nature of creationism. They're very vocal about that. More so Bill than Neil, more so Bill Nye. Neil says things but he's much more, he's like Carl Sagan, he's much more sort of balanced versus Bill Nye who seems to be rather unbalanced. But here's the point, people will say this, well I'm not listening to anything Bill Nye says, he's just an actor. Now you might have thought that, or might have even said something like that. Guess what? Him being an actor doesn't matter about the argument. The argument can be true even if he's an actor. So by saying, I'm not going to listen to him, he's just an actor, is not a good argument. Because him being an actor doesn't make what he's saying false. Doesn't make it true, but doesn't make it false either. Yes! Absolutely. Him being an atheist, him being an actor, him only having a degree in mechanical engineering, I've heard people say that. He's not a scientist, he's a mechanical engineer. Well, how are we defining scientist? I mean, seriously, what does it matter? Again, I'm not trying to attack fellow believers, but we shouldn't make bad arguments either, right? Now, I realize sometimes it does get a little old hearing from Hollywood all of their opinions, and I do understand sometimes we say, boy, I've heard people say, I wish I'd just stick to acting or something like that. But the reality is you are at that moment sharing an opinion. What if somebody says, well, I wish you would just stick to being retired, or I wish you would just stick to working at the JA, or I wish you would just stick to, what are you doing again, Mr. Pam? You know what I'm saying? What if somebody said that? You know, you don't have a right to an opinion because of that. We don't like it because they have more platform than we do. That's why we don't like it. So there is a way to discuss it without assuming that they're wrong just because they're an actor or they're wrong just because they're a mechanical engineer or they're wrong because of whatever. Ad hominem is a fallacy of relevance. It is irrelevant to the conversation. When we use that argument, we are simply attempting to secure an emotional response, not an intellectual one. And I know, this ain't the funnest thing to hear, it stabs me too. I make these mistakes, but we gotta know. Alright, the next one. Begging the question. Begging the question. Now I love to explain this one because a lot of people mistakenly think that begging the question means raising the question. And people say that. Well, they'll be in a conversation and somebody will say something, well hey, that begs the question. And they'll say something. That's not what begging the question is. That's raising the question. Begging the question. is when you make an assumption in your argument that you have yet to prove. Begging the question is when you make an assumption in your argument that you have yet to prove. I'll give you the best one that I've heard. Evolution is indisputable scientific fact. The Bible denies evolution, thus the Bible is unscientific. That's begging the question, you know why? Because there's an assumption in there that hasn't been proven. Evolution is undeniable scientific fact. They stated it. They used that as the premise of their argument. But they didn't prove it. That's the very thing we're debating. Whether or not that's true. And yet they used that as the argument. And when you do that, you're making an assumption you've yet to prove. And you are at that point making a logical fallacy. Formally, that's a valid argument. Think of it. Evolution is indisputable scientific fact. The Bible denies evolution, thus the Bible is unscientific. That is a logical, valid argument. But it's not a true argument because it's based on a premise which is untrue. It's just like saying all men are green, Dale's a man, Dale's green. It's based on an untrue premise. Here's a laughable example. I don't care where you are, well I do care where you are politically in a sense because part of our demonstration of our politics is a demonstration of our faith and there are certain things that do matter. But I'm going to say something about our president, know that I'm not saying it in a way that I mean to demean him or his office. But I want to say this, one of the best examples of begging the question was from our president. He said, and I quote, and I went through and listened to it three times to make sure I'm quoting him correctly. He said, the news is fake because so much of the news is fake. I'm not misquoting, I swear to you all. He said, the news is fake because so much of the news is fake. Whether or not it's true. I'm not saying it's not true. I'm saying it's an invalid argument because he's using the premise to prove the conclusion without proving the premise. This is the exact example. Begging the question is also called circular reasoning. Circular reasoning. This is why we don't simply tell people that the Bible is true. Because it's true. Because the same argument can be used by Muslims for the Koran or Mormons for the Book of Mormon. We demonstrate the truthfulness of the Bible in its prophetic utterances and the demonstration of its tenacity over time and the truthfulness of what it states. We say it's true because it is true, but we don't simply say it's true because it says so. Yeah, if you say it's true because God says it is, that's not circular. It isn't. It isn't. That is an example of non-circular reasoning. That's an appeal to authority. But it's claimed to be circular reasoning. It is. And there is a reason. That's a definite trail that we could go down, and I want to make sure we don't go too far. But there is a difference in saying we believe that God is exists and that he spoken and he has spoken his word and he says it is true so we believe that it's true we're appealing to authority in that sense the ultimate authority which is God so in that sense it's not necessarily a circular but the argument is made that it's pure circular reasoning if we simply said the Bible's true because it says it is and that's it that would be a circular argument but we say the Bible's true because God says it is we appeal to an authority and that's a different type of argument Haha, indeed, that's right, yes. But you understand what I'm saying? Anybody can make that argument about any document. So we appeal to more than simply the reasoning of the circle. Thirdly, and we're running out of time, and I knew we would, equivocation. E-Q-U-I-V-O-C-A-T-I-O-N. This is when two words are used that have different meanings, but they're used the same way. You've heard people say, well, you're equivocating. You're taking one term, and you're using it in a way that you didn't use it that way before. Here's a simple example. Doctors can prescribe medicine. Pastor Keith is a doctor, therefore Pastor Keith can prescribe medicine. You understand that we're equivocating on the word doctor because it's two different uses of the term, but in the argument we're using it as if it's the same. We've been talking about this with evolution, right? Evolution, meaning change within a species or change within a kind, is legitimate. Evolution of change of kinds over billions of years has never been observed. It can't be observed. So to equivocate between evolution here and evolution here is wrong. It's a logical error and yet it's done all the time. We watched the video, Evolution vs. God. He said, tell me, why do you believe in evolution? Because we've seen it happen. You've seen this animal turn into this type of animal, this kind of animal? No. But we've seen evolution in bacteria. What did they become? Bacteria. We've seen evolution in fish. What did they become? Fish. You understand? The guy says, well, human beings are fish. And he said, what? That's an example. How many of you remember who's on first? Who's on first? What's on second? I don't know who's on third. Right? Today's pitching, tomorrow's catching. That's the Abbott and Costello. That's equivocation in its humorous sense because when he said who's on first, he's saying who as in who is. But when the other guy said who's on first, he's saying who as in the person's name. So that's equivocation in a humorous context. But you have to listen because this happens a lot when talking to people from other religions. Talk to Mormons about justification. They are not talking about what you're talking about. You talk to Mormons about God. Just the word God. They believe God was a man that lived on another planet who because of his obedience to Mormon teachings became God. That's an entirely different definition of the word than what we mean when we talk about the God who is and was and is to come, who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, who is without beginning and end. It's an entirely different definition and thus equivocation is when you take the same word which is two different meanings and make them have the same meaning for the benefit of an argument that's untrue. This next one, time, time, time. Okay, post hoc ergo proctor hoc. I'll write it, it's easy. Post hoc ergo proctor hoc. I'm going to, but the Latin is more fun. Post hoc. after this, therefore, because of this. That's what post hoc ergo proctor hoc. Basically this means that because one thing, it's post hoc ergo proctor, P-R-O-P-T-E-R, hoc. This is the argument that goes like Okay, the English is, after this, comma, therefore, because of this. Okay, let me give you an example. Something happens, and then something else happens. And there is an assumption that the second thing was because of the first thing. People who receive last rites from a priest usually die shortly thereafter, therefore priests are dangerous. Do you understand how that works? One thing happened, and then this other thing happened, and the assumption is that one caused the other. I'm going to give you a little quote that's been very helpful for me. Causation is, well, now I lost it. No, I'll get it back. It's not in my notes, but I'll get it back. Okay, so let me do this. Let me just go through this real quickly. How many of you ever known somebody who says, well, every time I go to a Jags game, I wear the socks that are lucky because I wore them to a Jags game and they blew it out. Alright? That's post hoc ergo proctor hoc. I wore my socks, therefore the Jaguars won. As a result, from now on, I'm going to wear these special socks. This is where superstitions come from. Why do you think people don't like to be crossed by a black cat? Because at some point, somebody tripped over a black cat in the dark. Therefore, black cats are dangerous. Why do you think people don't like to walk under ladders? I always thought that was pretty normal anyway. But they say, no, it's bad luck. It's not bad luck. It's somebody at some point got a paint can to the noggin. That's why. Therefore, you understand. Now you say, well, how does this work? How does this work in the subject of apologetics? Here's a good one. Everywhere they've taught creation in schools, they have low test scores. Therefore, creation teaching causes bad grades. Post hoc ergo proctor hoc. This happened after this happened, therefore it was because of this. Correlation does not always equal causation. Yes! I knew I was going to get it. Correlation does not equal causation. That's meaning two things correlating does not always mean that one causes the other. It can, but you gotta prove it. You can't just state it. That's where the fallacy is. If you assume it without proving it, you've created a logical fallacy. You've gotta prove that one is the cause of the other. You can't just state it and assume you've made an argument. You haven't. There's a TV show called The West Wing. Now I don't watch it and I didn't watch it, but I I, you know, little clips come up every once in a while and there's a clip about this. There's a lady comes to the president, it's all about president, and I think it was sort of based on Bill Clinton, sort of very, you know, played by Martin Sheen. And he, the lady said, she said, you need to stop telling jokes because you told a joke in Texas about the Texans wearing hats. now we've lost Texas and he said post hoc ergo proctor hoc and she goes what and he says you're assuming a correlation is a causation he said it wasn't my joke that caused us to lose Texas and then she said no it was when you started speaking Latin but but you see though this happens on the news all the time this happened then this happened it must be because of that Now you gotta prove that. You can't just assume it. Alright, last and will be done, the genetic fallacy. This one's easy, just write genetic. This one's very important because this one can be abused easily. The genetic fallacy. This is denying something simply based on where the information comes from. For instance, someone might say to you, I don't believe that, because it's in the Bible. I don't believe the Bible. You say that's in the Bible. I don't believe it. See? That's a genetic fallacy. Likewise, we might cite something from Answers in Genesis, the website. We might cite a quote, and somebody says, well, I don't believe that. Answers in Genesis, I don't believe their website. I don't like that website, so I'm not going to listen to that because of where it came from. Jason Lyle, in his book, Discerning Truth, writes this, he says, "...an argument should be evaluated on its merit, not its source." Now, if a source of information can be established as unreliable, then that merits mentioning. However, that doesn't prove it. You still have to argue that the information is wrong. As I said, as Christians, we believe the Bible. We do not, however, believe everything that comes on the news. But just because it's on the news doesn't make it untrue. Just calling it fake news doesn't make it untrue. You can call it anything you want, but if you haven't demonstrated that it's fake or false, all you're doing is speaking into the air. Whatever arguments are made have to be made on the basis of their merit. Stephen Hawking doesn't believe in God, but not everything Stephen Hawking ever said was wrong. Like, it's just like Lee said earlier, just because he's an atheist, or agnostic, or whatever, doesn't mean everything he says is necessarily wrong. And using that as the reason for why you don't listen, or why you are arguing, is not how good arguments work. There are so many more, but I'll end with this one. And this one isn't for your sheet, this is just, I thought, a fun way to end. I like this kind of stuff. This gets me excited, having these conversations, because this is how debate works. When you come in to do a debate, you point out these things. No, that's post hoc, or no, you're using a genetic fallacy. This is how you demonstrate that somebody's not using good arguments. But the last one is called the no true Scotsman argument. You've heard of this? The no true Scotsman argument is this. Two people are talking and the first person says, no Scotsman will put sugar in his porridge. And the person two says, now wait a minute, I know a man named Angus and he's from Scotland and he puts sugar in his porridge. And the first person says, well, no true Scotsman. puts sugar in his porridge. You see how they changed the rules of the game. You say, well how does that apply to us? Somebody says, no scientist denies Darwinism. You say, now wait a minute, Jonathan Sarfati is a scientist, he's a PhD, and he's written many books refuting Darwinian evolution. And they'll say, no true scientist. will deny evolution. You see how that works? It's not a good argument, but it's how people argue. Look for what people are saying, listen to what they're saying, and you will be able in that moment to be able to engage them better. If one, you recognize your own logical inconsistencies and are able also to recognize theirs. Was this helpful? And if nothing else, I hope it was fun. Let's pray. Father, thank you for tonight. Thank you for this opportunity to study together. I pray that it will be used to help us all understand how we should give a defense, how we should persuade, how we should give an answer for the hope that is within us and to do so with gentleness and reverence. And we praise you and thank you for all that you've done for us in Jesus name. Amen.