A, the number of people that sent this to me
was insane.
B, it confused a lot of people.
And it went like super mega viral.
All right, let's see it.
So it's just I get suspicious when anybody, whether it's
a uh a televangelist or a politician tells me that
something is central to my faith when Jesus never talks
about it.
To me, that should, I think, ring alarm bells as
to what is the agenda here.
Um what is someone trying to get across.
And I think if we're looking at the last 40,
50 years, the religious right has made a concerted effort
to make homosexuality and abortion the two biggest issues for
Christians.
One thing I'll say is Jesus never said anything about
nuclear warheads, bestiality, or paper straws, but they're all awful
too.
Yeah.
So that's number one, it's argument from silence.
It's the weakest form of argument.
There's tons of stuff Jesus never explicitly talked about that
everyone knows are evil.
So this is a flagrant straw man fallacy.
Josh is not responding to what Representative Tallerico said in
that clip.
Josh is responding to an entirely different claim that Representative
Tallerico not only never made, but explicitly distinguished from the
argument he was actually making.
Because Josh is acting as if what Representative Tallerico said
was, Jesus never said it, therefore you can't say it's
wrong.
Or therefore it's not wrong, or something like that.
And Representative Tallerico said absolutely no such thing whatsoever.
And in fact, later on in this interview said, I
recognize that Christians have scriptures that they will appeal to
in defense of their positions on homosexuality and abortion, and
that's a debate that we can have, but that's not
what I'm arguing.
I'm arguing this other thing.
Because what Representative Talarico is arguing is that Jesus never
said it, therefore he gets suspicious when people try to
insist that it is central to Christian identity.
And he doesn't like that Christians are trying to make
these things the two biggest issues for Christians.
And he doesn't like that people automatically assume that because
you're a Christian, you must be anti-gay and anti-abortion, because
there are many Christians who are not.
So his position is about the salience of these positions.
to Christian identity and the fact that Jesus never said
it
So how can we turn this into central Christian identity
markers?
That's Representative Talarico's argument.
And let's watch him distinguish that position from the claim
that Josh is addressing here.
Again, I'm very open for my fellow Christians to disagree
with that, and they may have um scriptural passages they
point to to be anti-abortion.
And I think that's a debate that that we should
feel comfortable having.
All I'm saying is that it shouldn't be assumed that
just because you're a Christian, you are anti- gay or anti-abortion,
because there are so many Christians out there who who
don't uh subscribe to either of those policy positions.
So as you can see, Josh is not addressing what
Representative Talerico said.
Josh is addressing a flagrant straw man fallacy, a claim
that Representative Talarico never made and in fact explicitly distinguished
from the argument he was actually making.