The Fallacies of Religious Clerics by N. Fakhr - HTML preview

Claiming That the Critic Is Merely Being Influenced by Others

Sometimes, when religious clerics hear a question or criticism, they do not respond to the argument itself.

Instead, they may immediately say:

“You are only saying this because you have been influenced by a certain person.”

Or:

“You are simply repeating the words of that well-known person.”

In this way, instead of examining the critic’s argument, they try to make the critic appear intellectually dependent on others and therefore less worthy of being taken seriously.

The critic can respond that this is true of all human beings to some extent.

Throughout our lives, we learn thousands of things and develop opinions about hundreds of different subjects. Some of what we know comes from direct personal experience, but a much larger part comes from other people.

There are, however, at least two very different ways of accepting ideas from others.

The first is to accept an idea simply because we respect or trust the person who expressed it, even if we cannot give an independent reason for accepting it or even if it conflicts with some of our own experiences.

The second is very different.

We may compare another person’s idea with our previous experiences, knowledge, and beliefs. We may find that the new idea fits well with what we already know and even helps organize and explain our earlier experiences.

Sometimes it feels as though we already knew the idea in some form but did not know how to express it clearly.

In that case, the idea—whether it is ultimately right or wrong—is no longer merely “someone else’s opinion.” It becomes our own belief, and we can defend it with reasons of our own.

It is also worth noticing that the same cleric who may use someone else’s influence as a way of belittling a critic may praise a believer for closely following the teachings of a respected religious figure.

That figure may be regarded as sacred and infallible, or may simply be a famous and trusted religious scholar.

The cleric himself, like the rest of us, has also learned a large part of his knowledge and many of his beliefs from other people.

There is another point as well.

Describing someone as a “well-known person of a certain kind” does not, by itself, prove anything about whether that person’s argument is true or false.

Such an expression may sound insulting or approving depending entirely on the speaker’s tone.

But logically, the reputation or identity of the person who first expressed an idea does not determine whether the idea itself is correct.

To judge an argument, we should examine the argument and the reasons supporting it—not merely who first said it or who else believes it.