Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) bashed former President Trump online and said Christians who support him “don’t understand” their religion.
“I’m going to go out on a NOT limb here: this man is not a Christian,” Kinzinger said on X, formerly known as Twitter, responding to Trump’s Christmas post. “If you are a Christian who supports him you don’t understand your own religion.”
Kinzinger, one of Trump’s fiercest critics in the GOP, said in his post that “Trump is weak, meager, smelly, victim-ey, belly-achey, but he ain’t a Christian and he’s not ‘God’s man.’”
I can’t tell if you’re being serious, but in case you are, these definitions may help:
No true Scotsman fallacy: No true Scotsman fallacy is an informal logical fallacy that occurs when one tries to define a term or group in a way that excludes certain counterexamples by arbitrarily changing the definition to fit their argument.
metaphor: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
Yes, except the example here is someone who very clearly does NOT fit in the group. It’s basically saying Donald Trump isn’t a real Christian, not because of some arbitrary definition of what it means to be Christian, but because he is literally not a real Christian. No True Scotsman doesn’t apply here because the subject is as far removed from a Scotsman as a squirrel living in Japan is.
Obviously Trump is not a Christian. That’s not the bit I’m referring to.
I mean the bit where he’s talking about people who follow trump and who call themselves Christian. Literally no true Scotsman. They 100% think they’re Christian, and they have just as much a claim on the title as anyone.
eta: relevant quote:
e: and if you think they can’t be logically correct in squaring their devout Christianity with their support of Trump, they’ve got several ‘imperfect vessel’ bible quotes for you.
You are assuming though that Kinzinger is…
…, which he is not doing. He’s using the definition as defined by Jesus.
Or, as @agitatedpotato@lemmy.dbzer0.com puts it …
I’m not assuming, I’m asserting that those gospels are heavily edited and censored by the church, so who really knows what the original intent was?
Leaving aside that the KJV that most Christians learn is filtered, sometimes erroneously, through multiple language translations, several of the original texts were cut from fairly recent editions because they contradict other texts or were morally problematic.
Claiming authority on what Jesus did or didn’t mean when referring to people who believe just as strongly they’re right is a fallacy, especially when, given the context of many other horrible teachings the bible espouses, it’s morally dubious at best. And those same texts have been used by church officials who should be authorities on the topic to justify atrocities.
So yeah, this is a fallacy.
That’s one hell of a debate catch-all escape hatch you’ve got there.
If you’re arguing that what we’ve all been told about Jesus’s intent and teachings are not true, then that’s a completely different discussion to be had, and we’re wasting our time discussing this current subject.
It’s not a debate catch-all, it’s just the truth.
My point is and has been that Christians who say other Christians are Christianing wrong are using a fallacy, because it’s just as valid that they think you are doing it wrong, and everyone on all sides can find bible quotes that support their views.
A hundred years ago, white supremacists used Jesus’ teachings to validate slavery, and they thought they were just as correct as you think you are. You can say they were using those passages erroneously, but they’d say the same about you with equal conviction and, looking at it from the outside, you’re both right.
Not when there is an entire book explaining the ideology of Jesus. Ignoring everything it says proves they haven’t read it which proves Kinzinger right.
I don’t think he was doing that though, but instead was stating that what Jesus says is Christianity is different than what today’s people say Christianity is, via by how they actually act, as “Christians”. In other words, Jesus practiced Christianity different than today’s Christians.
Or are people not allowed to say to someone else that they do not act in the way that the group they are in says they should act?
Sure, they’re allowed. I’ve spoken to loads of them (where I live, I’m surrounded), and they fully believe people like Kinsinger are the ones not following those teachings.
My point is when a belief system is so subjective and abused – even by the church itself – it’s the Spider-Man pointing meme.