False Dichotomy
Wednesday, June 15th, 2005Edit: Upon further review of this post–and believe me, there’s been a lot of review of this particular post–I have to say that my initial wording below was a lot stronger than it really should have been. I think the point was worth making, but that comments like “if preachers want to be taken seriously by people with critical thinking skills” were out of line.
If I offended anybody with those statements, I apologize. I did not mean to insult or tear down anybody by what I said.
There’s an old cliché, coined by some guy up at The Wilds, that has, like many of the sayings of Dr. Bob Senior and Dr. Bob Junior, attained functional equivalence with Scripture among many fundamentalists. Soon after the preacher has consulted the one verse that is the basis of his argument for the next half-hour, he’ll quote this saying:
Just two choices on the shelf:
Pleasing God or pleasing self
This statement is very catchy. Unfortunately, it’s also completely fallacious. It’s the perfect example of a false dichotomy: There are more options available than just pleasing God and self: You can also please other people, for example.
Think about that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition show: These guys come to some needy family and rebuild their houses for them. Are they doing it as a service to God? No. They’re doing it to help a family in need (and make a little money for Sears and ABC, but that’s beside the point). Is your average school teacher in it for the money? No, they’re trying to help kids reach their full potential.
Besides being a false dichotomy, it also implies a false choice: Pleasing God and pleasing self are not necessarily mutually exclusive options.
For example, the book of Proverbs states “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.” I should think that the man who finds himself a wife is at least as pleased as the Lord is with the idea.
In short, if preachers want to be taken seriously by people with critical thinking skills, they need to let the cliché go, no matter how catchy it is.
