It's been a long time since Nate's done a podcast episode all by himself! Nate talks about an apologetics strategy called "reductio ad absurdum" (reduce to absurdity), and how to use this tactic with full-term abortion, new definitions of marriage, and transgender ideology.
Website: www.dangerousfaith.net
YouTube: Dangerous Faith
Rumble: Dangerous Faith
Instagram: nwdangerousfaith
Twitter: @FaithDangerous
Facebook: @NWDangerousFaith
It's been a long time since Nate's done a podcast episode all by himself! Nate talks about an apologetics strategy called "reductio ad absurdum" (reduce to absurdity), and how to use this tactic with full-term abortion, new definitions of marriage, and transgender ideology.
Website: www.dangerousfaith.net
YouTube: Dangerous Faith
Rumble: Dangerous Faith
Instagram: nwdangerousfaith
Twitter: @FaithDangerous
Facebook: @NWDangerousFaith
Welcome to the Dangerous Faith YouTube channel. My name is Nate Williams and if we like how this video goes, we'll also put it on our podcast as well. Dangerous Faith is on Apple, spotify and other locations. What are we going to talk about today? Well, that's a great question.
Nate Williams:We are going to talk about an apologetic strategy titled Reductio Add Absurdum, and so for my Latin knowers, latin fanatics out there, hopefully I pronounced that correctly, but what it means is reduced to absurdity. We're going to take certain topics like abortion, pro-life topic, a marriage, gender, sexuality, and it's a very effective strategy for handling people who disagree with you. So let's say, someone says abortion is a good thing, okay, you could say abortions a bad thing, and then give reasons, abc, 123, etc. That's one way of handling it. Or you can do this strategy again Reductio Add Absurdum, or reduce to absurdity, and what it is is you take that person's position, you use their logic, you use their reasoning and you show that it leads to absurdity, contradiction. It just it's not coherent, it doesn't work. Their worldview starts to fall apart, and I think it's very effective because it avoids that Facebook debate type. I'm going to respond to you in this way. You're not going to listen to me and you're going to respond in that way. I'm not going to listen to you and I'm going to respond the way I want to, and we don't listen to each other, whereas with Reductio Add Absurdum, you take their position and you kind of enter their worldview and you show them, hopefully, graciously, hopefully, with kindness, you show them yeah, it's not going to work because it contradicts itself. It's not a coherent worldview.
Nate Williams:So I'll jump in and with some examples, let's see. When it comes to abortion, right, some people believe that abortion should be allowed up until birth. So full, not trimester by trimester, just all the way up until birth. So here's an example of reducing that worldview to absurdity. Now, I did not get this example, I did not create it out of my own head, I did not come up with this.
Nate Williams:This was a guest on the Greg Coco podcast, stand reason. I check it out. It's a great podcast. Someone who was pro-life was on the show. I forget the name, I forget the organization, but I came up with this and it goes something along the lines of the monster mother example.
Nate Williams:So if someone believes that abortion is acceptable up until birth, well, what's worse? Abortion or torture, killing or torture. Hold on, hold on, stay with me here. I'm going somewhere with this. Well, killing is worse than torture, right? Because while torture is terrible, it's not very fun, at least you're still alive at the end of it. Killing is worse than torture.
Nate Williams:That's the first step you need to get the person you're talking to to agree with Okay. Once you're there, you then say, well, if you're for abortion, that means you can kill a baby at any time while the baby's still in the womb, the baby's not born yet. What that also means because you can do that to the baby, you should also be able to torture the baby, play with the baby, deform the baby, disable the baby. Again, I don't want to get too graphic here, but you can do terrible things to the baby while the baby's still in the womb, because torture is not as bad as killing. And so if they're okay with killing, they also have to be okay with messing with the baby while it's in the womb. But then all that has to stop once the baby's born, because now the baby's a human life. And so if they're okay with killing, they have to be okay with torturing the baby, because it's the lesser of the two evils. So then you ask once you explain all that hopefully better than how I did it once you explain all that to the pro-abortion advocate, you then ask them are you okay with maiming and torturing and messing with babies in the womb up until birth? Now they're in a dilemma Because they're killing the baby.
Nate Williams:If they want to be consistent, they have to say yes, because remember, the baby's property, the baby's subhuman, the baby has not been born yet. So therefore killing's okay. Well, again, what's not as bad as killing? You think of torture? Torture has to be okay as well. So if they're gonna be consistent, they have to say yeah, yeah, torturing babies for fun in the womb up until birth is acceptable. But they kind of give up all moral high ground because obviously we have this thing inside of us called a conscience that tells us no, torturing babies for fun up until birth is a bad thing. That makes you a monster mother hence the name a monster mother to do so. So obviously you shouldn't be able to do that. But then they're okay with abortion, which, again, killing is the worst evil. You're okay with killing the baby. Well, oh, do you see how they're stuck? If they're inconsistent, they can say killing's fine, but torture and maiming babies for fun in the womb, yeah, that's not a good thing to do, that's wrong. But then they're inconsistent or they can do something called maybe I call it this falling on their sword to stay consistent with their position. They'll tell you oh yeah, you know, sure, killing and torture is fine. The baby's property, the baby's not even human yet, it's a fetus, it doesn't matter so sure. But at that point, if they're both for killing and messing with babies up until birth, they've lost the moral high ground. What you've done is you've entered their worldview. You've used their logic, their reasoning and you've shown that it's absurd. Obviously, doing that to babies is morally evil. But what are they gonna do? They're gonna stay consistent or be inconsistent.
Nate Williams:Another example of this is marriage. So moving from abortion, the pro-life topic, to marriage, that is, a biblically faithful Orthodox Christian, I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. But if you are of a different mindset and marriage just is now, whatever you want it to be, it's whatever makes you happy. It's two consenting adults, it's however many parties, doesn't have to be two, just whatever makes you happy. Well, what that does is, again, reductio ad absurdum. Enter their worldview. Okay, if marriage is just what we feel like, what allows us to be our authentic, genuine self, okay, let's reduce this to absurdity. Let's walk through what marriage is.
Nate Williams:Well, according to the Christian worldview, marriage is for life, marriage is between one man and one woman. For the creation of kids, for the stabilization of society, marriage is between one man and one woman because the genders, they compliment one another. Men and women on average are different, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. But if marriage is now defined as whatever allows you to be your authentic, true self, then well, what if I wanna marry myself? What if I wanna marry my laptop or my car? That happens. What if I wanna marry a tree? It makes me happy, I'm expressing my individualism. What if I wanna marry someone of the same gender?
Nate Williams:And this is where those with that worldview would say that's great. Well, what about five people? What about 10 people? What about if I don't want to get married for life and I just wanna stay married till it works for me? Or sign a 10-year contract? You know, I'll give you ABC. You give me one, two, three. We produce children, we support each other and then, at the end of 10 years, we go our separate ways, we sign a marriage contract for a certain number of years, why does it have to be for life?
Nate Williams:Again, you take all these things and if marriage is just what makes you happy, what it leads to is absurdity. The institution of marriage, the definition of marriage, loses all meaning. There's no boundaries. So think about it. If you come from that worldview, what is the boundary for marriage? What is the definition for marriage? And the moment you come up with some sort of boundary marriage is this why the Orthodox Christian position makes sense? It's based on natural law and the design God has for the world. That marriage creates children and what families do is the family unit stabilizes society. You want children to be born in stable situations so that they grow up and become good Christians, good community citizens. They make the world a better place. That's the design. But once you get rid of that, bible doesn't matter, natural law doesn't matter. God's design for the universe doesn't matter, it's just what makes you happy. Well then, once you come up with a boundary, my question is why?
Nate Williams:I talked with a progressive Christian about this and his position was marriage between two people doesn't matter the gender, as long as they're adults. I said, okay, so two people. Two guys, two girls. Fine, why do you stop there? Why stop at two? Why not five? Why not 10? What's so sacred about the number two?
Nate Williams:He said he doesn't know. I said what about time? Marriage is supposed to be till death. Do we part right Till death? Do us part? Do we part Whatever? English? It's a language. You get it. It's for life. Okay, well, if we're going to get rid of, why do we have to have any time boundary? Why not just until we feel like divorcing? He said well, I really don't know. Because what happens when you leave the definition given to us in the Bible and in natural law?
Nate Williams:You go into that worldview and you say what are the boundaries? There aren't any. None of it makes sense. So, marriage, the meaning and the institution, it disappears, it serves no purpose. Another example moving, we went from the pro-life topic to marriage. Now we're gonna talk about transgender ideology. Men can be women, women can be men. What matters is your individualism, how you feel, what you think is your authentic self. Well, okay, fine, what about? Again, reductio ad absurdum, I'm going to enter that worldview and show you how it's inconsistent.
Nate Williams:What about trans ableism or trans racialism? Let's start with trans ableism or trans, I think that's the term for it. What if? You know? I'm perfectly healthy. I have two working arms, two working hands, two working legs and feet, and it's all okay. But I identify as a disabled person. So therefore, because my authentic self tells me I am disabled, I should be able to go up to a doctor or to a surgeon and say, hey, chop off my limbs, I want to remove this part of my body. And they might ask what's wrong? Why do you need to do that? Oh well, I just believe I am a trans-abled person. I'm a trans-disabled person where my authentic self tells me I'm disabled. So please chop off my perfectly healthy limbs so that I can better identify with my genuine self. Well, obviously that's absurd. A surgeon should not do that. If your body's healthy, why am I chopping off body parts?
Nate Williams:Now take trans racialism. I am a white male, I am. But what if I feel like I'm Asian? I identify as an Asian person. Or let me use a better example because I am part Asian, I identify as a let's see an Australian. Or I identify as Hispanic. Okay, I'm not, I'm white and part Asian. But that's my genuine self. I identify as black. Now what about that. My genuine self tells me I'm black. Well, you need to affirm me, right? Because that's how I genuinely feel on the inside. But it's absurd. I'm not black, I'm not Hispanic. What if I identify as six foot eight? I'm not six foot eight, but that's how I feel. What if I identify as a 65 year old and I wanna draw some benefits? Now I'm in my mid-20s, so biology tells me no, but biology doesn't matter. I identify as trans-agism. I'm 65. I wanna draw some benefits, please, and thank you.
Nate Williams:Well, again, all of this is absurd. It's all absurd. Obviously, I'm none of those things, but in the transgender ideology community and with the ideology, none of that matters. If I believe I'm a woman, it doesn't matter the body parts I have, it doesn't matter. You know my reproductive capabilities. I should be able to chop off healthy body parts, change my genitalia because of the way I feel in my authentic self. Again, if you're consistent with transgender ideology, chop off my body parts, my top, my bottom, whatever you wanna call it. Top surgery, bottom surgery, wanna give me this body part? Take away that body part. You should be able to. But then you have to take that logic and apply it to all the other situations I talked about. That doesn't make sense, does it? Again, absurdity, it's all absurd.
Nate Williams:Abortion well, if you're for abortion up until birth, you should be for torturing your baby in the womb. Because, again, you're consistent. Right, it's just property, it does not matter, it's not human. Oh, that's not right. What about marriage? Marriage loses all meaning, okay, well, that doesn't seem right. What about transgender ideology? You should be able to apply it to age and height and skin color and all those things. Again, it's all absurd. These are examples of the apologetics tactic known as reductio ad absurdum, reduced to absurdity.
Nate Williams:It's effective. I think it's more effective than a tip for TAA. Oh well, I'll tell you why you're wrong. I'll tell you why it doesn't matter again, but I'm interested in hearing your thoughts. So make sure to like, share, subscribe, comment. Do you think this is an effective strategy? What's wrong with my reasoning? I'm up for conversation. Follow me on social media Dangerous Faith. We're on Twitter, facebook, instagram and, yeah, check out more videos on the YouTube channel. More podcasts on our I guess podcast. That wasn't very clever, was it? More episodes on our podcast? And yeah, we'll be back with more episodes as time goes by. I'll talk with you later, some time.