Logical Fallacies for Christians 1: Guilt by Association

This series of weekly articles will talk about logical fallacies that often mislead Christians.

How many would you know?

How many could you spot?

How many do you make yourself?

1. Guilt by Association

What is it?

‘Guilt by Association’ is where an argument is dismissed because of who else agrees with it, rather than using direct evidence.

Examples

“You don’t want to believe that – it’s what those rotten Catholics believe!”

“You don’t want to believe that – it’s what those rotten Protestants believe!”

Discussion

It very rarely matters who believes something. Each argument should be considered on its own merits. Even if those who believe in such-and-such are the worst people in the world, it is not relevant. Even horrible people get things right at times.

As the saying goes:

“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day”.

Even the worst mass murderers in history probably believed in gravity. Does that make gravity untrue? Even Satan himself believes in God, does that mean God does not exist?

Nor does it matter if the person making an argument is good and trustworthy – good people can and do get things wrong.

Let’s imagine that we lived in a magical world in which it does matter who is making an argument. Then completely false things would magically become true if argued by a good person. Likewise, completely true things would magically become false if argued by a bad person.

Further, if the good person then changes their mind, the true thing will now become false!

That is irrational.

Here’s a real-life example:

“You don’t want to believe in the Trinity – that priest believes in the Trinity and he’s now in prison for child molesting!”

It does not matter one bit whether that priest was a child molester or not, it does not affect the nature of God. Even Satan – the worst child abuser of all time – likely knows the truth about God, but that does not change anything.

We can also see the fallacy of this by doing the opposite:

“I believe that we all have immortal souls because that’s what my mother taught me, and she would never lie to me.”

It does not matter if your mother was the most wonderful and honest woman who ever lived, it has no bearing on the existence (or not) of immortal souls. Even very lovely and kind people can be wrong at times.

Unfortunately, these fallacies are quite common among Christians. People both accept and dismiss evidence because of who is associated with a particular claim, rather than on the claim itself.

This is often just a form of prejudice.

Jesus’ apostles would have not approached the Samaritan woman at the well because of who she was, yet Jesus was able to find a lot of good within her heart.

So yes, even that dirty-rotten scoundrel who goes to a different Church from you may, at times, have a good point.

“What if someone is a well-known compulsive liar?”

In that case, it would be wise to doubt a claim, but doubt is not deciding. Doubt invites further scrutiny. Doubt and being dismissive for no reason are not the same thing, even though many people confuse the two.

“But what if their claim is preposterous?”

Then it should be pretty easy to find good reasons to dismiss it.

Let’s say that a man approaches you in the street and offers to sell you an ancient relic. He claims that it’s a “genuine part of the true cross,” no less! Would you believe it?

Well, it would be reasonable to dismiss his claim because it’s just so extremely unlikely that such a thing has survived, never mind the likelihood of it being sold by a random man on the street. These are good reasons.

However, it would be very silly to dismiss it merely because he’s Irish and you don’t like Irish people. Likewise, it would be pretty silly to believe that the relic is genuine because he’s Irish and you happen to love Irish people immensely.

Your dislike or love for Irish people is not relevant.

***

When considering any argument, judge it on its own merits. Do not practice prejudice by dismissing it merely because the person arguing it is a Catholic, a Protestant, a Mormon, a Unitarian, a Jehovah’s Witness, a Jew, a Rastafarian, an Atheist, or anything else.

As they say in Britain:

“Play the ball, not the man."

Or, as a popular joke says:

“So you like drinking water, do you? Hah! So did Adolf Hitler!”