Health, wealth, and prosperity fallacy
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Original Question
If you have X, you will get Y.
I have X, I didn't get Y.
You didn't have enough X.
This is particularly prevalent in the faith based movement, or health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. It goes something like this:
If you have faith, you will get that car (or house, or spouse).
I have faith, but I didn't get my car...
You didn't have enough faith.
Answers
1Off the top of my head, it is a version of the No True Scotsman Fallacy. "Don't have enough of" and "not a true" are essentially the same things. For example,
If you are a Christian, then you won't murder anyone.
Tony is a Christian; he murdered someone.
Tony wasn't a real Christian (or Tony wasn't enough of a Christian).
Let me think about this to see if there is another named fallacy for this. If not, let's create it :)
Friday, Mar 31, 2017 06:51 AM
The more generic appeal to purity can be seen when the claim is that someone "does not have enough of" something, which is why they are not meeting the condition. For example, "If you have the desire for success, you will succeed!" Billy has the desire, but is not succeeding. Therefore, Billy's desire is not strong (or pure) enough. The difference between the appeal to purity and the no true Scotsman is one of degree versus authenticity.
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