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“No true Scotsman” isn’t just a thing you can scream at everything.

The No True Scotsman tale is as follows:

Person A: “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.” Person B: “But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge.” Person A: “But no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”

I don’t know about you, but having sugar on your porridge isn’t a large scale distinction as okay-ing the mass murder of an ethnic group.

A more accurate example within Christianity will be:

Person A: “No Christian says swear words” Person B: “But my uncle Angus is a Christian and he swears sometimes” Person A: “But no true Christian says swear words”

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PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

no Christians supported mass murderer
Hitler and his supporters were Christians
No ~~true~~ bible-believing Christians supported it

Sounds an awful lot like the scenario that you described. In fact it matches the archetypical example so well that it’s kinda wild that you quoted it when trying to say it doesn’t apply

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- Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  In fact it matches the archetypical example so well that it’s kinda wild that you quoted it when trying to say it doesn’t apply
  
  What type of horse kicked you in the head to make you think that mass murder is as trivial as sugar on porridge or saying no-no words?
  
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  - PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    What type of house kicked you in the head to make you think that “no true Scotsman” cannot apply to serious topics?
    
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  - ExtantHuman@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Why do you think the example being trivial means that they all have to be trivial to apply? Examples are not all encompassing, nor do they seek to additional constraints that were not part of the definition.
    
    The whole point of the fallacy is to disingenuously distance the group from acts that members of the group have done.
    
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    Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    There’s nothing disingenuous about it. If you don’t hold to a belief system, you don’t hold to a belief system. A genocide of a people that God once considered “chosen” purely on the grounds of race is not part of the Christian belief system. My overall point is that you cannot blame Christianity for the holocaust - the main proponents of the Holocaust weren’t Christian aligned at all.
    
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Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The example used to illustrate the No True Scotsman fallacy in no way means that it only covers similarly minor things. That’s not how logic works, you’ve completely missed the point.

The claim “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge,” is falsifiable, because we can first determine whether someone is a Scotsman and then check if they put sugar on their porridge or not. But if it’s, “No true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge,” where a true Scotsman is defined as someone who would never put sugar on their porridge, then it’s a truism, it’s just saying, “People who don’t put sugar on their porridge don’t put sugar on their porridge (also, this has something to do with Scotsmen for some reason).” It’s not predictive and it’s not falsifiable, and it’s just as true for any other group of people defined the same way.

Likewise, if you’re saying “No true Christian would ever commit mass murder,” then it’s a meaningless claim because you’re defining a “true Christian” as someone who would never commit mass murder. So really the claim is, “People who don’t commit mass murder don’t commit mass murder (also, this has something to do with Christians for some reason).” If I define a true Buddhist or a true Muslim or a true Communist or a true Liberal or a true man or whatever else as being someone of that group who doesn’t commit mass murder, then it’s just as true of any of those groups as it is of Christianity. The claim that “true Christians” or “bible-believing Christians” don’t commit mass murder is a meaningless truism, it’s not predictive and it’s not falsifiable, even if someone you think is a true, bible-believing Christian and has every appearance of being so goes off and commits mass murder, you only conclude that you were wrong about the person being a true Christian. And that would be equally true of any other group or ideology you apply the standard to.

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- Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  If you actually follow Christ, you wouldn’t commit mass murder. It’s like claiming to be a vegan yet eating meat.
  
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  - Objection@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Is the defining quality of Christianity a set of political beliefs based on your personal interpretation of the Bible? Would it be accurate to say, “There’s never been a Christian president in the US,” if none of them have lived up to your particular moral standards? Do I, and everyone else, have to consult you specifically any time we want to know if someone is or isn’t a Christian?
    
    No, obviously not.
    
    Unlike veganism, the question of what the defining quality of a Christian is is more debatable. If you want to define it as, “following Christ’s teachings,” then it’s impossible to establish any sort of reasonably objective standard since people have vastly different interpretations of those teachings. Have you sold all your possessions and given them to the poor? I doubt it. A strict reading of the text might consider that a requirement.
    
    From an academic perspective, it isn’t appropriate to weigh in on one’s own personal interpretation of which sects and which people should be considered heretical. We should use unbiased terminology that’s consistent with common use and can be commonly understood and based on observable things including (but not necessarily limited to) self-identification. When we debate whether or not someone is/was a Christian, trying to match our own personal interpretation of Christ’s teachings with our own personal evaluation of their moral qualities would be an absolute nightmare, and it would be impossible to discuss anything across sectarian lines.
    
    And again, it’s not just Christianity that this comes up with. A Buddhist might argue that the Japanese temples that endorsed the country’s actions during WWII weren’t “real” Buddhists, that if they were actually following Buddha’s teachings they wouldn’t have done that. Should I also consult you personally every time I want to know who is and isn’t a Buddhist? Or do I need to read the whole Pali canon and derive my own interpretation and denounce every Buddhist sect that deviates from it as not being real Buddhists - even if I myself am not one and don’t have a dog in that fight?
    
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    Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    I mean that buddhist objection sounds reasonable
    
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