A great example of Tu quoque

 From (click) video's comment section comes this gem:

@Jeremiah_James_G

I appreciate the discussion, and I think we’ve reached the real heart of the issue—our fundamental assumptions. You trust in scientific models to explain causality, which is reasonable, but those models are limited to describing what happens within the universe, not what—if anything—brought it into being. Science itself doesn’t claim to answer that question, yet you hold to the belief that a natural explanation must exist, even when the current models don’t provide one. That’s still faith—faith in the sufficiency of natural causes. I freely admit my faith—I believe the universe has a cause beyond itself because that aligns with both reason and evidence. You place your faith in a naturalistic framework, trusting that given enough time, science will close the gaps. We both work from assumptions, but only one of us acknowledges it. At the end of the day, the question isn't just what we believe, but why we believe it, and which framework makes the most sense of reality as a whole. Thanks for the conversation.

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SIGH.

When I think about someone else, in my head, it is said I'm trying to put myself in there shoes, to try to understand them, I pretend to be them. I know what it is to feel what they felt, even though I'm not experiencing it myself, this is called empathy. However, something strange happens when the other person does not hold a view I myself hold, I can experience cognitive dissonance - trying to hold two opposing ideas in my head at the same time.

For example, Mr. Notreal might believe that some celebrity is of high moral regard, but finds out on the news that they are accused of doing something wrong - this person might think the person making the claims against that celebrity is lying, and is doing so because they want money. This rationalization protects the belief that Mr. Notreal holds.

His brain is used to holding the idea that celebrity is of a high moral regard, he is quite used to that notion and changing it will cause him anxiety, distress, sadness, and other emotions he wishes to avoid, thus he will automatically make excuses in his brain for why it can not be that he is wrong about the belief he holds.

Here we have Jeremiah who projects his beliefs that everyone has faith out into the world itself, everyone must be like him in this regard - that is, everyone MUST have faith like he does, just its a faith of a different flavor.

Jeremiah has faith, and he doesn't mind admitting to this fact, as long as everyone else admits to "this fact" that they ALSO share faith... even if they don't call it faith because, well, everyone "must" have faith. Because he believes this is true.

The belief is "Everyone has faith" this BELIEF of Jeremiah is protected by his reuse of the statement, with a number of rationalizations.

Jeremiah writes "hold to the belief" - a projection that the people reading HAVE a belief in the first place, rather then know a fact about reality. There is a big difference here in regards to what is a belief vs a fact, can we know facts?

Well I think we can - but perhaps Jeremiah does not think we can, in his mind, we can only hold belief ideas, and never fact ideas.

I can't say for sure that is what Jeremiah holds in his head of course, thus why I write "perhaps" above. The paragraph he wrote does expose many of his beliefs about what other people believe.

He writes "yet you hold to the belief that a natural explanation must exist" there again, he projects the reader is holding a belief they might not hold.

Jeremiah does not seem to realize here that someone might not hold any belief about an explanation at all!

Example:

Mr. Notreal: "(X) happened what caused it? It was Magic or Time Travelers!"

Skeptic: "I don't believe in Magic."

Mr. Notreal: "Ah ha! You must belief it was (A) or (B)! If you reject That it was Magic, then you MUST think it was Time Travelers!"

Skeptic: "Not at all. I do not know if it was either of the two options, or perhaps an unknown third option. I do not hold a belief regarding what caused event (X) in fact, I'm not even sure there WAS a cause."

~End example~

The problem is the many beliefs Jeremiah holds about reality, one stacked upon the other that he assumes everyone must hold. He does this to protect his own beliefs, leading to a giant circle of ideas in his mind.

The fact to pull from this example of the fallacy of Tu quoque is to look at what we think, what we say, and to be ever watchful for when we Tu quoque others, because it might be our own beliefs we are seeking to protect.