Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Welcome back y’all! Let’s start off like we usually do by reviewing a fallacy we covered earlier this season, the “Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right” Fallacy. Ok, do you want to hit pause real quick and see if you can remember what this fallacy is? The ‘Two Wrongs Make a Right’ Fallacy happens when a person justifies something they did by saying that the other person would have done it or that the other person did the same thing first. OR sometimes it’s used to justify a wrong action or a behavior because ‘other people do it’.
Question to ask yourself: “Is it really true that a second wrong will cancel out the first wrong?”
If you want to review or hear more about this fallacy, go back & check out Episode 115.
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Alright, let’s dive into today’s new fallacy, the Appeal to Faith Fallacy. The Appeal to Faith Fallacy happens when someone makes a claim and then says you just have to have faith that it’s true, rather than providing evidence to back up their claim.
Here’s a simple example: Bella tells her younger sister: “Fairies are real, you just have to have faith & believe.” Ok, can you see how Bella is just appealing to “having faith” to back up her claim rather than actually having a good argument for why she says fairies are real?
Another example of the Appeal to Faith fallacy comes from the movie, Field of Dreams. In this movie, Kevin Costner’s character is told by a mysterious voice to build a baseball field in the middle of the corn field. The voice keeps telling him, “If you build it, they will come.” That’s it. No evidence to back up the argument, he was just expected to take it on faith. And, of course, because it’s a movie, he built the field and magically, baseball players from the past show up to play baseball.
The problem behind the thinking here with this fallacy is the same as all the others: The person committing the Appeal to Faith fallacy doesn’t offer any proof of their claim, they’re relying on “just believe” to get the person to do or believe whatever it is they’re asking them to do or believe.
So, you may be wondering, well, what about religious faith? Is having faith in God a fallacy, too? And that’s a legitimate question, especially since we’re talking about this fallacy, and it’s also a question that someone could write books about, and many people have.
To keep it simple in this short podcast, I’ll share my thoughts on it. The word ‘Faith’ is commonly used to mean different things by different people and in different settings. It can have a few definitions depending on context. Some people, when they use the word faith, mean “believing in make-believe”, and that’s what this fallacy is referring to.
Sometimes, faith is defined as having a strong belief in something, and I’d say that’s probably a more common use of the word. But that’s also not always how the word is meant when it’s used by people who believe in God. And I guess I should specify that I definitely can’t speak for all people of all religions, b/c I don’t know about all people of all religions! I’m speaking for myself as a Christian when I say that when I speak about the faith I have as a Christian, I’m not referring to “believing make-believe”. I believe there is a faith that is given to us by God that’s very different from wishing & hoping something were true.
Now some people will say that any sort of faith in God or in what the Bible tells us is “make-believe”, but I disagree. There is tons of real evidence throughout history & in science that are evidence for what I believe. This is why apologetics is so important. We need to know why we believe what we believe!
Question to ask yourself if you think you’re facing an Appeal to Faith is this: “Do they have any real evidence to back up their claim?” *repeat*
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
