“Explain your reasoning to us. If your reasoning is good enough for you, why would it not be good enough for me?”
Christians will sometimes ask me this, trying to get me to explain why I no longer think that Christianity is true.
And it has a very good answer. There really are good reasons why my reasoning is good enough for me, and would not be good enough for them. Basically, they want me to give a few short arguments which they will, quite rightly, dismiss as unconvincing. I fully understand why they dismiss them as unconvincing. It is because “a few short arguments,” no matter what they are, will in fact be unconvincing. I understand that, because I would have dismissed them as unconvincing myself in the past, and I fully understand why I would have done that, and it would have been quite reasonable.
But my reasoning is good enough for me, because I have thought about these things for years, considering not just a few short arguments, but many, many many arguments, and replies to replies, and replies to replies to replies, and so on. So I understand how things stand overall, and this “how things stand overall” cannot be communicated in a few short arguments.
In that way, to the degree that “If your reasoning is good enough...” is rhetorical, and implies that if you are not convinced, they should not be convinced either, it is a fallacy.
“Explain your reasoning to us. If your reasoning is good enough for you, why would it not be good enough for me?”
Christians will sometimes ask me this, trying to get me to explain why I no longer think that Christianity is true.
And it has a very good answer. There really are good reasons why my reasoning is good enough for me, and would not be good enough for them. Basically, they want me to give a few short arguments which they will, quite rightly, dismiss as unconvincing. I fully understand why they dismiss them as unconvincing. It is because “a few short arguments,” no matter what they are, will in fact be unconvincing. I understand that, because I would have dismissed them as unconvincing myself in the past, and I fully understand why I would have done that, and it would have been quite reasonable.
But my reasoning is good enough for me, because I have thought about these things for years, considering not just a few short arguments, but many, many many arguments, and replies to replies, and replies to replies to replies, and so on. So I understand how things stand overall, and this “how things stand overall” cannot be communicated in a few short arguments.
In that way, to the degree that “If your reasoning is good enough...” is rhetorical, and implies that if you are not convinced, they should not be convinced either, it is a fallacy.