No true Scotsman

It is important to understand the No True Scotsman fallacy in terms of Christianity. Here’s the wiki description:

No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim (“no Scotsman would do such a thing”), rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original universal claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule (“no true Scotsman would do such a thing”).[2]

Bradley Dowden explains the fallacy as an “ad hoc rescue” of a refuted generalization attempt,[1] the following is an example of the fallacy:[3]

Person A: “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
Person B: “But my uncle Angus likes sugar with his porridge.”
Person A: “Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”

Essayist Spengler compared distinguishing between “mature” democracies, which never start wars, and “emerging democracies”, which may start them, with the “No true Scotsman” fallacy. Spengler alleges that “political scientists” have attempted to save the “US academic dogma” that democracies never start wars from counterexamples by maintaining that no true democracy starts a war.[3]

Essentially, what you see in the Christian manosphere is that the No True Scotsman fallacy pops up in a lot of various places due to the nature of what is “Churchian” and what is “Christian.” This is the fallacy that many Churchians often like to use to inadvertently or advertently push their own agenda over the Scriptures. Some are right, and some are wrong.

The No True Scotsman fallacy is only a fallacy if the objective reality doesn’t match up with what is being said. For example, one of Dalrock’s more recent posts has a number of them.

Christian: “LIFE AMONG THE CHURCHIANS: “My problem is that no church I know makes it clear what the wife’s obligation to her husband is.” In contemporary society, men have obligations. Women have entitlements.”

Churchian: “The main part of his serious error is that the New Testament spends a lot more time instructing husbands on their duties that wives on theirs. Maybe if he learned and practiced his obligations first he wouldn’t be worrying so much about hers.”

In other words, the Churchians are saying: “No true Christian should be worrying about the duties of his wife. Maybe if he learned and practiced his obligations first he wouldn’t be worrying so much about hers.”

Unfortunately, we know that is verifiably wrong because the Scripture tells us to admonish other Christians who are wayward:

Luke 17:3 “Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.

Romans 15:14 And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another.

Psalms 141:5Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me; It is oil upon the head; Do not let my head refuse it, For still my prayer is against their wicked deeds.

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

1 Thessalonians 5:14 We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

Matthew 18:15 “If your brother sins[k], go and [l]show him his fault [m]in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. 16 But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every [n]fact may be confirmed. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as [o]a Gentile and [p]a tax collector.

Indeed, it is actually good to admonish, reprove, and rebuke as necessary. This is what the Scriptures say. If we are not concerned about what fellow Christians are doing that is bad. And that is specifically what the Churchians prescribe: man up and mind your own beeswax.

Indeed, most of the “man up” rants by either women or traditional churchians are of the same variety.

Christian: “Men are just responding to incentives to not marry because of the high divorce rate and women having tons of premarital sex which increases chance of divorce.”

Churchian 1: “Real Christian men would marry her despite her past history because she has been forgiven.”

Churchian 2: “Yeah, those men should man up and do their duty.”

In other words here, “man up” or “real men” are the substitutes for “no true Scotsman” statement. Instead ” real Christians” or “true Christians” would be the way we are saying they should be. We know this is false because the only reason Paul gives for marriage is that if you burn for a woman. There’s no Christian doctrine that states you should marry someone who has slept around just like there is none that say you should marry a woman with credit card debt or a history of lying. It is something you should take into account especially if they did it while claiming to be a Christian and if they repented and turned from their ways.

Likewise, nice guys generally don’t get the girl whether they are Christian or not. To describe the behavior, we generally know that nice guys don’t act masculine or Christian for that matter (as they put women on pedestals).

I’ve stated before that TRUE Christian men will be attractive to women. In this statement I’m assuming that such “TRUE Christian men” will not be nice. That is they won’t put a woman on a pedestal. They will act in accordance with masculinity in the Scriptures. Thus, generally, TRUE Christian men will be objectively attraction.

Technically, this is a fallacy as I’m saying that no true nice guy acts in a Christian manner. As a general rule, masculine men will attract women. It is not generally a fallacy to say that nice guys are not masculine and therefore won’t attract women. It’s true that women COULD like particular nice guys though, so there are exceptions. Women are attracted to and get married to Christian men who are nice guys. But it’s also true that such nice guys almost inevitably end up getting divorce raped Christian wife or not.
Thus, wording matters. A logical fallacy may be objectively true if the information is compared against the Scriptures. The fact that the argument takes the form of a logical fallacy is not a reason to dismiss the meat behind the argument. Only that the argument in its present form is not supported. The argument must be dicphered and compared against objective truth which is the Scriptures.It is important to understand this because of the subjective lens that we all have in regard to viewing the world. All subjectivity and observations naturally need to be compared against an objective standard in order to convey objective truth in conversation.