Appeal: fallacy spotted
From Jay Dyer vs Pedro from Crucible Debate: Sola Scriptura and Protestantism.
- #15241:50:05upheld Jay Dyer epainos: fallacy spotted (+1)
The council upheld the call: Jay Dyer earned 1 point.
“It doesn't follow from my questioning that I think there's no God because I'm asking a question that an atheist asks, it's a basic philosophical point.”
Diogenes: He names the inference exactly — that asking a question atheists also ask does not make the questioner an atheist — and returns the exchange to the point instead of trading insults.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: Jay's consistent method throughout is to press Pedro on the epistemic grounding of his claims (general vs. special revelation, the canon) and to call out invalid inferences when Pedro deflects; here, after Pedro implies Jay "sounds like an atheist" for asking a skeptical philosophical question, Jay (having just said moments earlier "this is all non sequiturs") explicitly identifies the invalid inference — that asking such a question entails holding the atheist's conclusion. The fallacy (a non sequitur insinuation that the questioner must share the conclusion of the question) is actually present in what Pedro said, and Jay names/identifies the faulty inference directly rather than merely trading insults, satisfying the definition.
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "fallacy spotted". Pedro had just suggested that Jay's probing about the epistemic source of his natural-theology claims made him "sound kind of like an atheist," implying that using a skeptic's method commits one to the skeptic's conclusion. Jay correctly points out that this does not follow — asking the kind of question an atheist asks is not evidence he holds an atheist's belief — which names the non sequitur in Pedro's insinuation rather than merely dodging it.
- Plato uphold: On the record: Jay's consistent method throughout is presuppositional cross-examination pressing Pedro on the epistemic source of his claims; here, after Pedro remarks "you're sounding kind of like an atheist right now" in response to Jay's line of questioning, Jay correctly identifies that the mere resemblance of his question to one an atheist might ask does not imply he holds atheist premises, keeping the exchange on the epistemic point rather than the ad hominem implication. Pedro's "you're sounding kind of like an atheist" line implicitly commits a genetic/guilt-by-association error, and Jay explicitly names why that inference fails, which is a fallacy correctly spotted in what the opponent actually said rather than a summary distortion of it.
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