this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2025
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Knowing a name of a fallacy doesn't mean you understood what the fallacy means.
The No true Scotsman fallacy is a very specific thing and it doesn't mean what you think it does.
Here's the name-giving example of the No true Scotsman fallacy:
So for an argument being the No true Scotsman, there need to be three elements. If one or more are missing, the fallacy doesn't apply:
So why does the no true Scotsman fallacy not apply here?
Because it's about this change, not about whether something can be classified as something.
Take for example this exchange:
In this case Person A
That's what @Demdaru@lemmy.world argued:
The "no true scotsman" fallacy is about changing your argument into a non-falsifiable tautology. It's not about using the words "true" or excluding some group from some definition. And it certainly doesn't mean "Everyone who calls themselves X surely and irrefutably belongs to group X".
No-True-Scotsman-Fallacy Fallacy
That is what you do when you say "They aren't real Christians because they do X." It is the poster child of the no true Scotsman fallacy.
Unless you think it requires changing after the start of the conversation in which you are completely wrong.
Ok, let me put it in a way that you might understand:
You: "No true Scotsman! Anyone who calls themselves an Atheist is an Atheist, no matter if they believe in God."
Do you see how this makes no sense?
An Atheist is a person who doesn't believe in God, not a person who calls themselves an Atheist. And saying you aren't an Atheist if you believe in God isn't a fallacy but just purely the definition of the term.
Here's the Wikipedia definition of a Christian:
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christians)
So someone who does not follow or adhere a religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ is not a Christian. Not by fallacy, but by definition. And it doesn't matter what they call themselves.
What you are doing is saying they are not really Christians because they do or don't do X and that is exactly what the fallacy is.
Are priests who molest children not real Christians?
Atheist is different because it is a singular thing, like calling that priest a child molester. He did the thing so that is what he is.
Again: "They are no true Atheists because they believe in God."
No true scotsman or not?
Not.
An atheist who believes in god is like a vegan who regularly and knowingly eats bacon, they are using the wrong labels. Those both have narrow and clear definitions, unlike religion where there are a ton of things that vary between local practices and traditions that can be used to say that they aren't really X religion.
And a christian who doesn't even follow (or doesn't even know) the basic teachings of Christ is also using the wrong label.
I follow your logic, and it does make sense, but I think the problem might be that those arguing against you are American, not Scotsmen /s
Can we agree that there can be good and bad, or perhaps generous vs selfish Christians? Another issue is “Christian” is sometimes used adjectively, “that’s pretty Christian of you”, which is generally used to mean generous, but has nothing to do with someone’s belief in God, Jesus etc.
Probably a person’s belief in supernatural beings has nothing to do with their ethics, morality or generosity, it’s just that in some societies at certain times there are perceived correlations, and irrespective of whether these reflect reality or not, they, through deliberate conflation of religion, morality, politics etc. can color people’s opinions of those belonging a specific religion.
I very much agree with that. There's a ton of stuff being mixed up together.
There's cultural and political Christianity, that both neither require faith (or even belief) in Christ or really have anything to do with Christianity as a religion at all.
And that's quite a bit of the issue at hand. You have people like Trump, who has no connection to Christianity (the religion) at all, who runs as the "champion of Christian values", while being pretty much the opposite of that. Because it's political Christianity.
And here you get a ton of this "us vs them" into play, that doesn't really have anything to do with Christianity (the religion) at all.
Cultural Christianity is in a very similar boat. In my country, ~70% of the people say they are Christian, according to census data, and a total of ~78% of the people say they belong to some organized religion (Christianity, Islam, ...), but only 22% of the people say they believe in some kind of God.
So more than two thirds of these so-called religious people, are not Christian by religion, but Christian by culture. I personally know quite a few people who don't believe in God, don't go to church, but who want to marry in a beautiful gothic church and use their Christian label to hate on foreigners and their foreign religions.