Greg Koukl's "Tactics" Strategy is to Obfuscate the Truth By Substituting Fallacies for Sound Reasoning

This meme is floating around apologetics sites with a huge number of likes and positive comments. It is the brain child of Greg Koukl, who is training Christians in the tactics of debate.

The point of this meme is that we believe the religion (or nonreligion) of the relatives who raised us. Koukl is stating the obvious as if this is significant. He ends by rhetorically asking atheists "Now what?" as if it takes away our thunder. Koukl's answer to atheists is to use the fallacy of tu quoque, known as the “you too” fallacy, which is claiming an argument is flawed by pointing out that the one making it is not being consistent with the claims of the argument. The reason why this is a fallacy is that the one who argues in this way, as does Koukl, is skirting the argument by not dealing with it honestly. For example, if someone argues "Your Mom is a bad cook", it does nothing to show your Mom is a good cook by retorting, "Your Mom is a bad cook too." Yet that's exactly what Koukl does.

This is the kind of tactical advice Greg Koukl offers. We've seen it before [click on the Tag below]. Koukl explains what he's doing with these kinds of meme's in the introduction to his book Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions:

Greg Koukl is trying to confuse people by keeping them from thinking about the nature of the truth. He's trying to take away the only means we have to come to the truth.

In other words, he's obfuscating! Prove me wrong if you think he's not substituting fallacies for sound reasoning, or stonewalling by not answering questions honestly, or other tactics meant to distract people from thinking about his Christian faith! For him its about using illegitimate tactics to stay in control of the conversations. He and other Christians already know the truth. That's not his focus. It's about keeping barbarians like us at bay. It's about keeping people from thinking deeper about his Christian faith.

I've said a lot about the problem of religious diversity and how it can be solved, if it can be solved at all. The only way it can be solved is to honestly deal with the facts that where in time we were born, and by whom we were born and raised, has an overpowering influence on us all about everything, especially when it comes to religion, politics and ethics. You can read the only solution, if there is one, in my book The Outsider Test for Faith. By offering his advice Koukl shows he's not interested in the truth. He's obfuscating.

Based on Koukl's obfuscation Christians are arguing on Facebook that atheists are committing the Genetic fallacy, which is dismissing the truth of a belief based on the origins of the belief. For example:

The origin of the belief is shown. Therefore, the belief is false. In this case the origin of one's religious belief is based on the accidents of birth. Therefore the religious belief is false.

But this is not what we atheists are saying. In fact, in my opinion, no one ever really commits the genetic fallacy if we think exclusively according to the probabilities. Atheists are saying it's extremely probable that one's religion is due to the accidents of birth. We're not saying one's religion is false due to the accidents of birth. We're only saying one's religion is highly improbable. This has an important, yet unrecognized corollary: Believers cannot use the mere possibility that they may have grown up with the correct religion as a means to overcome the high probability they were raised with the wrong religion, or sect within a sect within it, without some really compelling objective evidence that could convince a reasonable nonbeliever!

Let's say the Christian faith is based on one's religious indoctrination inside a religious culture. Now what? How is it a fallacy worth stating if this is the best explanation for their faith? It doesn't do a thing to show such an explanation is not the best one by saying "Genetic Fallacy." For there is an important difference between an argument and an explanation. A sufficient condition for one's particular religious faith is the accidents of birth. This is the best explanation for billions of believers.

So one's religious faith is not automatically false due to the origin of their faith according to the accidents of birth. But it does entail we should all doubt what we were raised to believe. We should seek objective evidence for what we were raised to believe. We should eliminate as far as possible the desire to confirm what we were raised to believe. We should all look at our cultural beliefs from the perspective of an outsider, a nonbeliever. When one honestly does this it has the unintended effect of causing them to reject their religion.