Appeal: appeal to popularity
From HEATED DEBATE! “jesusandwhatnot” Vs Jay Dyer! His ‘Gotcha’ Fails LOL.
- #115510:56upheld S1 psogos: appeal to popularity (+1)
The council upheld the call: Speaker 1 gave away 1 point.
“That is sealed. Billions of bibles. Sealed. Nobody can get around that.”
Diogenes: The number of copies a text has been printed in is a fact about circulation and settles nothing about how Romans 7 is to be read, yet it is offered as the whole force of the argument.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: S1 has held from the opening that Scripture's plain statement is self-evidently binding and "cannot be got around," and this line is a continuation of that stance rather than a new position, but it still commits the fallacy of treating quantity of printed copies as if it were evidence for the correctness of a reading. S1's method throughout is to treat the plain text of Romans 7 as self-authenticating ("sealed") and immune to counter-argument; the "billions of bibles" line adds nothing about how the passage should be read and instead substitutes sheer volume of printed copies for interpretive argument, treating universality of circulation as though it settles the question — which is the substance of an appeal to popularity/consensus, and Jay's immediate mockery ("How did you calculate the billions of bibles?") shows the line was offered as though the count itself clinched the point.
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "appeal to popularity". S1 treats the sheer volume of printed copies — "billions of bibles... sealed... nobody can get around that" — as itself clinching that his reading of Romans 7 is beyond dispute, but the number of copies in print has no bearing on whether that particular interpretation is correct; it substitutes ubiquity of the text for an argument that the reading is right.
- Plato uphold: On the record: S1's opening and consistent method is a plain-text, self-authenticating appeal to Romans 7 as settling the divorce question; this line extends that method by adding an appeal to the passage's mass circulation as though ubiquity itself certified the interpretation, which is the fallacy alleged rather than a departure into some other kind of claim. S1's assertion that the interpretation is "sealed" and unchallengeable because it exists in "billions of bibles" substitutes the sheer volume of printed copies for actual textual or exegetical argument about how Romans 7 is to be read; print-run size settles nothing about interpretation, and Jay's opponent status on the floor confirms this was made and immediately answered/mocked, satisfying the floor requirement.
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