When in a discussion, I tend to be quick to note my disagreement when someone says something I disagree with. I am prone to immediately launch into all the reasons I think they are wrong, followed by presenting and arguing for my own point of view. Unfortunately, this is not the best approach to resolving disagreement.
The mantra I am trying to live by is “make them justify before you falsify.” What does this mean? Before you ever attempt to falsify someone’s belief or statement, ask them why they think it is true. Why do they believe what they believe? What reasons do they have? The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim. It’s not our job to show why they are wrong, but their job to demonstrate that they are right.
If you pause a moment to make them justify their claim, you’ll often find that they have little-to-no justification, or that their reasons are quite bad. Once they realize that they have no (or poor) justification, they will likely be more open to your critique of their view as well as your own view. So the next time you are tempted to voice your disagreement, make them justify before you falsify.
Thinking to Believe 
March 17, 2021 at 8:39 am
Your mantra is of little use in reality. Your bias remains. You are only controlling the onslaught of your belief by pretense.
I have never met a believer who was prepared to have her belief overtaken by knowledge or reason because because have no knowledge to reason just plenty of reasoned-belief where one belief reasons to justify another belief.
If the Christian could only understand that Jesus lived and messaged by knowledge over and over again. From the opening of his communication to the congregants he aroused their ire. While they all sat in smug belief, they were smitten by his remarks that in the time of famine there were many widows in want, but unto only But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. She was a foreigner, a woman who had made no covenants to believe or support Israelite prophets. But Jesus was not taken in by traditions, hierarchies, or ethnic boundaries but in the human spirit at its most vulnerable and most pure, and that was the subtle message to the synagogue congregation.
He used another example to hit home the same message when he said: “And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.”
Syria and Israel were enemies at war in biblical times. But the human spirit to help other humans in need was anathema to the believers of those days, smug by a belief that caresses a believer’s sense of self righteousness, so what did the congregation do?
“And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.”
So their bias remained whether it is asserted before or after the justification you know will never comer to you as a Christian believer.
Many examples are chronicled in Jesus message because he had no bias by tradition, ethnicity and yes BELIEF values by religious affiliation.
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March 17, 2021 at 11:43 am
@Leona Last, how do you know all those things about Jesus?
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March 20, 2021 at 11:59 am
At the bottom of every reasoned formal argument, there is a premise. The premise is either true or false. If the premise is wrong or defective, perfect logic leads you automatically to a false conclusion. If the premise is right, perfect logic leads to the right conclusion. Yet, oddly, if the premise is wrong and the logic is defective, one may come to the right conclusion despite the defects. What is less obvious is that at the bottom of every premise is a belief system. These are always challengeable, whether religious, secular, philosophical, or science-based. Belief and disbelief (B and -B) are subject to the same criteria. The only difference is that one requires evidence and the other does not. But merely challenging the evidence does not prove against it, for we are all the prisoners of our prejudgments and nearsightedness. As a result, we are all too ready to slip into ad hominems. So, justification reasonably comes before falsification.
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March 21, 2021 at 8:56 am
@theotherapologetic, you write,
Please elaborate. By my lights, no true statement is justified by a faulty argument. I’m interested to know what you mean. Thanks, in advance, for your reply.
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March 22, 2021 at 5:01 pm
“The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim. It’s not our job to show why they are wrong, but their job to demonstrate that they are right.”
I’m pleasantly surprised to hear you say that. Yes indeed, the burden of proof is always on the person making the claim.
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