No True Scotsman is one of my favourite fallacies. The most common example is No True Christian:
Person A: Christianity has been nothing but a source for good!
Person B: But what about the Crusades?
Person A: Oh, they weren’t true Christians.
Person A is attempting to show that Christians are moral by defining them as moral. The trick A uses is to slide in a characteristic (being moral) as a necessary part of the definition — even though there’s no agreement about whether this should be part of the definition (and A does not attempt to argue for it).
With religions it’s especially messy. Most religions have many factions, and each one often calls the others not-True-Believers. But there’s no good reason for an outsider to take any side’s definition as objective. So the only reasonable position seems to be letting people self-identify: eg. if you say you’re a Christian, you’re a Christian. This will make many very uncomfortable (eg. are Jews for Jesus practicing Judaism?). But the alternative is to grant just one of the factions ownership of the label — for no good reason.
An example is when Christianity combines with tribal customs. 96% of the Papua New Guinea population is Christian, yet there’s plenty of brutal blood feuds that would be called “un-Christian” by outsiders. However, part of Christianity’s success has been its ability to be reinterpreted in a huge number of contexts. I think there’s no basis to argue that Christianity contributes directly to a blood feud. But it’s also fallacious to just try define these people out of Christianity.
Nor does tracing the “historical roots” of a religion help. You can’t decide on whether the Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox Church is the “true” church without deciding on the theological disputes that caused their historical split. Which makes no sense for an outsider. Similarly, talk of whether “true Islam” supports terrorism or not is completely vacuous for a non-Muslim: how can someone who does not believe any interpretation of Sharia decide which one is correct? There really is no choice but to call Osama bin Laden as much a “true” Muslim as the most radical reformist.
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Can’t quite agree with this, for example a vegetarian who eats chicken and fish cannot be described as a vegetarian.
All religions have some central tenets that virtually all parts of that religion agree on – all christians believe Jesus is the son of god.
So we have to have some basic points that would lead you to believe someone was a faction of a religion other than their bare assertion.
However, you are entirely correct that we have no way of knowing which brand of a given religion is the ‘real’ one and so we cannot allow a catholic to say that the Westboro church are not real christians or a baptist to say the murder of ’tiller killer’ could not have been carried out by a true christian.
Bin Laden is probably the “truest” Muslim in the world. He lives his life by the code of his holy text, albeit his own interpretation. But everyone that claims to live by any religious code is choosing their own interpretation anyway.
Ironically, the most “christian” people I know are usually atheists – they tend to be more tolerant, kind and forgiving than any religious folk I’ve come across.
keddaw — I guess I should have clarified. Of course for some terms the definition is pretty uncontroversial (in that there is general agreement), it’s only for terms that are ideologically-loaded that there’s a problem. For instance this doesn’t just apply to religion but, say politics (not a true communist), philosophy (not a true utilitarian) etc etc. But I think terms are a lot more contentious than we might think from a dictionary definition. I would say even the vegetarian case you mention is a bit more subtle — in cases where vegetarianism is seen as an ideology there might be debate amongst those lines. And of course there are problems with defining what is an animal etc etc. So I guess it can get quite messy.
However I will just [paraphrase] quote the sex columnist Dan Savage on people self-identifying with sexual orientations: people have a right to call themselves whatever they like. However, in some cases we have a right not to believe them (eg. someone who has sex with people of the same sex occasionally but identifies as strictly heterosexual)
Alan — couldn’t disagree more on Bin Laden being the most “true” Muslim. And I think you provide the counterargument in the next sentence: he lives by his interpretation just as much as a liberal Muslim, so what basis would you say he is more true? There’s often talk about the wishy-washy picking and choosing of the religious liberals but fundies do it just as much. For instance you don’t see too many Christians selling everything they have and giving it to the poor as Jesus specifically instructed his cult followers in the gospels. For Bin Laden the fact is that his theology goes against virtually all the mainstream sharia schools so from their perspective he’s a heretic as well.
True – but his whole life is led based on what he believes to be the correct interpretation of his religion. Whether that interpretation is acceptable to other Muslims or not is irrelevant – everything he does is based on his religion. In that sense, he’s a true Muslim.
Osama (not Obama) is a Muslim who, according to most Muslims, 700 million+, has a seriously skewed view of Islam. It may actually be the correct view but most people would disagree.
However, what do we consider the ‘true’ version of Islam? Or Christianity for that matter? We have moved on as a species, but some people have clung on to old fashioned ideas.
I have to think that all (unevidenced[sic]) ideas are equally valid. If there is no part of your idea that can be challenged by science then it is no more likely than any other idea that cannot be challenged by science.
[...] monopoly in defining that religion (ie. Orthodox Jews saying Jews for Jesus aren’t Jewish) is very suspect. Also from a certain perspective, any form of evangelism involves some deception. Even if the [...]
On Keddaw’s point :
“all christians believe Jesus is the son of god.” – is that true? Was Thomas Jefferson a Christian (He would have said so)? As long as religion is based on personal revelation (which it all is, I think) then people get to call themselves what they like. The different splinters might have legal control over who associates under their banner (Catholicism, Anglicans, etc.), but beyond that Christianity is what I say it is, to me.
“Was Thomas Jefferson a Christian (He would have said so)?”
Don’t think he ever did. Deist at best.
But no, you don’t get to call yourself a Christian if you don’t believe in the divinity of Christ. personal revelation or not, there are certain tennets of faith that define the faith.
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