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Fallacies in end of time PropheciesWhere I’m from, popular commentary on current affairs involves saying these are signs of the end of times, because for example: a prophecy said that the worst among men will be their leaders. What fallacies are being appealed to in this sort of reasoning? |
| asked on Thursday, Jul 16, 2020 02:34:43 AM by | |
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Shoehorning is the one that immediately comes to mind. The reason why there wasn't a known moment in history (post about 30AD) where claims of living in the "end times" wasn't made, is because the criteria for "signs" are both extremely common and ambiguous. All it takes is one person to say someone is a bad leader, and we have "the worst among men will be their leaders" will be true. |
| answered on Thursday, Jul 16, 2020 07:22:42 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD | |
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I did not know of the Shoehorning fallacy until I saw it on Dr. Bo's answer, so I was having to cobble together several using my understanding of the concept of "prophecy". Prophecy is prediction without evidence, accepted as prophetic (=true) on the basis of who said it. The fallacy in this case is Appeal to Authority , and since the "authority" is circularly accepted, is indistinguishable from Appeal to False Authority as well. The basis of who said it carries along a "positive" sort of ad hominem though since all the 'stamp' versions are negative I couldn't use it. Perhaps we need a "because I'm the Mommy" fallacy? In communities who widely believe that there are prophecies, the contrarian may be pushed by Appeal to Popularity to avoid shunning/exclusion.
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| answered on Thursday, Jul 16, 2020 01:03:15 PM by DrBill | |
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I guess it depends on how you define prophecy. To me a prophecy should be specific, detailing what and when, and be able to predict the event before it occurs. It should also not be something which people can work towards e.g. creating a country, or ordering an item from a menu in a restaurant. If it's just a vague statement with no specific predictions which is generally ascribed after the fact having failed to indicate the event in advance, and vague enough to be ascribed to numerous events, then meh. I also am member of the I didn't know about the shoehorning fallacy club, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to tie it down to any specific fallacy, almost as though I'm not a fallacy prophet! |
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| answered on Thursday, Jul 16, 2020 04:18:29 PM by Bryan | ||||
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| answered on Thursday, Jul 16, 2020 06:05:48 PM by Jason Mathias | |
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