1. Owning your worldview presents:
Tactics
A Game plan for discussing your christian convictions
By: Gregory koukl

2. Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: Part Two
Finding The Flaws!!!

3. Tactics: Suicide Overview
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: Suicide Overview
Chapter 7: Formal Suicide
These views are logically flawed (violating the Law of Non-contradiction) (A ≠ X AND -X)
Chapter 8: Practical Suicide
These views are not logically flawed but not practical in the real world.
Chapter 9: Sibling Rivalry & Infanticide
Sibling Rivalry occurs when two arguments conflict with each other.
Infanticide occurs when a larger “parent” concept is in conflict with a “child” claim that is being made.

4. Tactics: Suicide Overview
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: Suicide Overview
Most faulty arguments have a tendency to destroy themselves if we take the time to think them all the way through.
A view “commits suicide” when it is self-defeating or self- refuting.
Often the best strategy is to stop a debate and just show that a argument is self-defeating.

5. Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Statement: Tabloid reads “Woman gives birth to her own father!”
Question: Are you able to draw her family tree for me?

6. Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Statement: Restaurant sign reads “Authentic Italian food served the traditional Chinese way!”
Question: What makes the food “authentic” and the service “traditional”?

7. Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Statement: “All English sentences are false.”
Question: Is that English sentence false?

8. Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
These statements are self-refuting because they don’t meet the criteria that they set for themselves.

9. Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Statement: “There is no truth.”
Question: Is that statement true?
Statement: “There are no absolutes.”
Question: Isn’t that statement an absolute?

10. Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Statement: “No one knows any truths about religion.”
Question: How did you come to know that truth about religion?
Statement: “Talking about God is meaningless.”
Question: Was your statement was meaningless?

11. Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Formal Suicide
Statement: “You can only know things through experience.”
Question: What experience taught you that?
Statement: “Never take anyone’s advice.”
Question: What makes your advice valid?

12. Tactics: chapter 7 - Contradictory statements
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Contradictory statements
Statement: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s to crowded.”
Statement: “I wish I had an answer to that, because I am tired of answering that question.”
Statement: “I really didn’t say everything I said.”

13. Tactics: chapter 7 - Contradictory statements
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Contradictory statements
Statement: “I never, never repeat a word.”
Statement: “This page is intentionally left blank.”
Statement: “You’re in rare form, as usual.”
Statement: “They have technology we don’t even know about.”

14. Tactics: chapter 7 - Contradictory statements
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Contradictory statements
Statement: “My brother is an only child.”
Statement: “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t go to yours.” (Yogi Berra)
Statement: “People shouldn’t try to impose their values on other people.”

15. Tactics: chapter 7 - Pseudo- questions
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Pseudo- questions
“Can God win an arm-wrestling match against himself?”
“If God got in a fight with Himself, could He win?”
“Can God defeat His own power?”
Pseudo-questions like this assume that God can act as two distinct persons instead of a single entity.
Pseudo-questions are incoherent.

16. Tactics: chapter 7 - Common ContradictionS
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Common ContradictionS
Theistic Evolution states:
God uses Darwinian Evolution as a tool to create life as He desires it to be.
Darwinian Evolution is by definition a random and unguided process.
How could God guide and manipulate a random and unguided process?

17. Tactics: chapter 7 - Common ContradictionS
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Common ContradictionS
Scientism states:
“Only science gives reliable truth.”
Can you prove that statement scientifically?
This statement is actually a philosophical statement about the nature of truth but cannot be addressed using the scientific method.

18. Tactics: chapter 7 - Common ContradictionS
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 7 - Common ContradictionS
Religious pluralism states:
“Multiple (or all) religions are equally valid and lead to the truth.”
All religions make exclusivity claims, this makes pluralism incompatible with them as they are stated.
Christianity states you must believe in Jesus to be saved. This excludes all other religions.

19. Tactics: chapter 8 - Practical Suicide
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 8 - Practical Suicide
Practical Suicide
“There is no logical contradiction, strictly speaking, just a practical one. In this type of suicide, you can hold the view, but you can’t promote it.”

20. Tactics: chapter 8 - Practical Suicide
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 8 - Practical Suicide
“It’s wrong to say people are wrong.”
“I’ll give you three good reasons why you cannot use logic to find the truth.”
“I think its wrong to condemn anyone for anything.”
“ You shouldn’t force your morality on other people.”

21. Tactics: chapter 9 - Sibling Rivalry
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 9 - Sibling Rivalry
One person states two (or more) arguments that conflict with each other.
Both arguments cannot be correct.
Point the problem out and ask them which argument is correct.
This cuts your work in half, or they may give them all up since they most likely don’t clearly understand them.

22. Tactics: chapter 9 - Sibling Rivalry (examples)
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 9 - Sibling Rivalry (examples)
“A good God wouldn’t let bad things happen.”
“A loving God would never send anyone to Hell.”
In the first statement God must do something about wickedness/evil or His goodness is in question. In the second statement if He punishes wickedness/evil then His love is in question.

23. Tactics: chapter 9 - Sibling Rivalry (examples)
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 9 - Sibling Rivalry (examples)
“Everyone has his own morality. Right and wrong is a private affair. Who’s to judge?”
“How could God exist if there is so much evil in the world?”
In the first statement morality is relative. In the second statement God’s existence is questioned because of an absolute moral obligation to stop evil.

24. Tactics: chapter 9 - Sibling Rivalry (examples)
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 9 - Sibling Rivalry (examples)
G.K. Chesterton - Orthodoxy - Chapter 3 The Suicide of Thought - The Infinite Skeptic
YouTube: The Modern Revolutionist
(Read by Ravi Zacharias)
Eight examples of sibling rivalry.

25. Tactics: chapter 9 - Infanticide
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 9 - Infanticide
A “parent” concept/claim is a generalized and sets the overall tone or framework for the argument.
A “child” concept/claim is specific and conflicts with the “parent”.
The “child” is destroyed by the “parent”.
Infanticide is the most difficult tactic to understand and use.

26. Tactics: chapter 9 - Infanticide (Examples)
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 9 - Infanticide (Examples)
“Son if you don't receive this letter, please let me know and I will send another. I made a copy.”
Parent: You must receive this letter for instructions.
Child: If you do not receive this letter…follow the instructions.

27. Tactics: chapter 9 - Infanticide (Examples)
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 9 - Infanticide (Examples)
“Everything outside of science is a matter of mere belief and subjective opinion, of which rational assessment is not possible.”
Parent: Only things within the scientific realm can be rationally assessed.
Child: This statement is a rational assessment of everything non-scientific.

28. Tactics: chapter 9 - Infanticide (examples)
Part TWO: Finding The Flaws
Tactics: chapter 9 - Infanticide (examples)
Steve Turner - Creed
Parent: This is the “Creed” of the post-modern thinker.
Child: We believe in the rejection of creeds. (last line)