Also called false dichotomy. Presents a limited number
of options and assumes that no other options can exist.
“Faith and reason are irreconcilable. Either you are a
person of faith or you are rational.”
 Problem – “Faith” and “reason” are not opposites. The
opposite of “faith” is “doubt”. There are more than 2
options available when dealing with the relationship
between “faith” and “reason”.
Also called “post hoc”, a faulty reasoning that confuses
timing with causation.
 “A” happened before “B”, therefore B happened
because of A.
“Other ancient religions that predate Christianity have
figures that experienced death and resurrection in their
own myths – Osiris and Adonis are examples. The
death-resurrection account of Jesus is not unique and is
likely the Jewish manifestation of this same myth.”
 Problem: There is no evidence that the writers of the
NT were influenced by other ancient religions. They
were Jews. The death-resurrection of Christ was
foretold in OT prophecies and was not spontaneously
invented by Christians.
For every right way to think, there is
a wrong way to think!
 Review the slides
 Convert slide material to 3x5 inch index cards and quiz
yourself
 “Come Let Us Reason” (Geisler & Brooks), Chapter 6
 Next 3 slides – Can you identify logical fallacies in the
following statements?
Although Jesus probably existed, reputable Bible
scholars do not in general regard the NT (and
obviously not the OT) as a reliable record of what
actually happened in history, and I shall not consider
the Bible further as evidence for any kind of deity. In
the farsighted word of Thomas Jefferson…’The day will
come when the mystical generation of Jesus…will be
classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in
the brain of Jupiter.’”
-Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion”
“The claim that I am an atheist because I don’t understand
‘love’ is particularly ironic. I do understand what love is,
and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a
Christian. Love is not self-denial. Love is not blood and
suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your
own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning
billions of people to eternal torture because they have
offended your fragile ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is
not obedience, conformity or submission. It is a
counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority,
punishment or reward. True love is respect and
admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a
healthy, unafraid human being.”
-Dan Barker, “godless”
Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as ‘the assurance of things hoped
for, the conviction of things not see’. Read in the right way,
this passage seems to render faith entirely self-justifying:
perhaps the very fact that one believes in something which
has not yet come to pass (‘things hoped for’) or for which
one has no evidence (‘things not seen’) constitutes
evidence for its actuality (‘assurance’). Let’s see how this
works: I feel a certain, rather thrilling ‘conviction’ that
Nicole Kidman is in love with me. As we have never met,
my feeling is my only evidence of her infatuation. I reason
thus: my feelings suggest that Nicole and I must have a
special, even metaphysical, connection – otherwise, how
could I have this feeling in the first place? I decide to set
up camp outside her house to make the necessary
introductions; clearly, this sort of faith is tricky business.
-Sam Harris, “End of Faith”