A Christian Error

Whether searching the Internet or conversing in person, Christians can discover that other Christians oppose even investigating certain ethical ideas on the grounds that the one investigating is merely trying to justify a sinful habit.  I want to dismantle and challenge this foolish belief.

After all, defense of an idea does not signify the presence of an ulterior motive to find something good or evil in order to fulfill a pre existing desire or idea.  Someone may have some illicit motivation or desire to legitimize a sinful activity, but that is certainly not always the case!  Instead of realizing this, Christians sometimes imagine that someone else who argues in favor of something they consider sinful (not that Christians generally have good moral epistemology anyway) secretly wants to engage in the behavior in question and is therefore intentionally calling good something that he or she knows is sinful, hoping to find a loophole that he or she can use to verbally ward off intellectual attacks and protect an evil act.

Whether the activity in question is playing video games, using profanity, tolerating public nudity, drinking alcohol, watching R-rated movies, or any other number of behaviors controversial among Christians, people need to stop pretending that those who engage in or defend the objective moral validity of them are simply attempting to justify a practice they know is sinful.  Some people may need this correction, but not everyone does.  Don't commit the fallacy of composition by saying that because one person hopes to legitimize an alcohol addiction or violation of conscience, therefore everyone who wants to drink alcohol, for example, seeks the same goal!

However, regardless of someone's potential personal reasons for investigating an idea, no one's motives make a conclusion true or false; at most someone may approach a correct and sound conclusion with flawed motives, but that never discredits the idea itself.

I can't believe that this still needs to be said, but many Christians dispute which moral teachings are even found in the Bible to begin with, so obviously just appealing to the Bible alone doesn't prove that one is actually reaching Biblical conclusions.  One needs to actually PROVE using logic that a particular "interpretation" is either correct, meaning that its conclusions follow directly from the premises, or at least possible, meaning that any opponents who call it "impossible" are demonstrably wrong.

For those readers who want to know truth by legitimate use of actual logic and not by fallacious reasoning--remember that self-education is about the self first and others lastly.  If you know for sure that you have the right motives when assessing what the Bible says or does not say about the morality of something, then if someone tells you otherwise you already know they are making incorrect judgments about you.  Don't allow their erroneous judgments to interfere with your own quest for knowledge and understanding.