Appeal: fallacy spotted
From Jay Dyer vs Pastor P Debate Orthodoxy vs Protestantism, Sola Scriptura and Church History.
- #130429:49upheld Jay Dyer epainos: fallacy spotted (+2)
The council upheld the call: Jay Dyer earned 2 points.
“… the fact that people disagreed really doesn't have anything to do with the truth or falsity of each either position... it doesn't constitute an argument.”
Diogenes: Pastor P's "who's to say which is right?" infers from the existence of disagreement to the failure of tradition, and Dyer correctly identifies that the inference is missing.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: S0 has held since the opening line ("if we all just have a consensus that two plus two is five, does it make it five?") that disagreement/consensus is irrelevant to truth or falsity; this call is a direct, unbroken continuation of that same standing critique, not a new or shifted position. Pastor P's line "who's to say which is right?" (following his account of the East-West schism and reappearing throughout with denominational splits) does commit an inferential move from mere disagreement/plurality to unknowability or indeterminacy of truth — a real fallacy (a form of argument from disagreement/relativism). Jay Dyer's quoted line correctly names the structure of that fallacy and explains why it fails logically, and he does so consistently across the debate (opening with the "two plus two is five" consensus jab, and later explicitly stating the parallel with "30,000 denominations, therefore nobody knows" being a fallacy). This is fallacy-spotting anchored in what the opponent actually said, not a misrepresentation of a stronger circle-with-mechanism argument, since Pastor P never supplied a mechanism at that point — he was reasoning from mere plurality/disagreement to skepticism about truth.
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "fallacy spotted". Pastor P had just answered Jay's question about which of the diverging East/West traditions is correct by saying "who's to say... which one's right?"—treating the mere existence of disagreement as if it settled or complicated the truth question. Jay correctly identifies that the bare fact that two parties disagree (or that a schism occurred) is logically independent of which, if either, is true, and he applies this same correct point consistently later against the "30,000 denominations" and "Eastern churches disagree" moves, so it is not an isolated or opportunistic charge but a consistently applied diagnosis of a genuine non sequitur in Pastor P's reasoning.
- Plato uphold: On the record: S1 has held since the opening that the perfect written word outranks fallible churches/councils, and here he leans on the further, distinct claim that persistent disagreement between traditions means one must simply decide which is right — Jay's line challenges that added inference directly, not a position S1 never took. Pastor P's move at that point ("who's to say which is right?" grounded in "they started out at basically the same place... and diverged") is an inference from the bare fact of disagreement/schism to the unknowability or relativity of truth. Jay's line accurately names the gap in that inference — disagreement alone is not evidence of falsity or of undecidability — and does not misstate what Pastor P said; Pastor P himself then doubles down insisting "yes it does" constitute an argument, confirming the inference was actually being made. This same point (mere disagreement/schism/denominational proliferation doesn't settle truth) recurs as a real load-bearing move for Pastor P throughout the debate (the East-West schism, the "30,000 denominations," the "if 10,000 people are watching, they want to know which is right"), so calling it "major" rather than "minor" is reasonable given how central this exchange is to the canon dispute.
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