The False Dilemma Fallacy can come very close to the Slippery Slope fallacy. Here is an example from the forum illustrating that:
- 7. Without God and the Holy Spirit we all have our own ideas of what is right and wrong, and in a democratic system the the majority opinion determines right and wrong. Someday they might vote in that there can only be so many kids per household, like in China. Or they can take guns away from citizens. If people don't have the Holy Spirit to convict them of what sin is, anything can happen!
The last statement is clearly a False Dilemma - either people accept the Holy Spirit, or an "anything goes" society will be the result. There is no consideration given to the possibility of people creating a just society on their own.
The main body of the argument, however, could either be described as a False Dilemma or as a Slippery Slope fallacy. If all that is being argued is that we must choose between believing in a god and having a society where the government dictates how many children we are allowed to have, then we are being presented with a false dilemma.
However, if the argument is actually that rejecting belief in a god will, over time, lead to worse and worse consequences, including the government dictating how many children we may have, then we have a Slippery Slope Fallacy.
There is a common religious argument, formulated by C. S. Lewis, which commits this fallacy and is similar to the above argument regarding John Edward:
- 8. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.
This is a trilemma, and has become known as the "Lord, Liar or Lunatic Trilemma" because it is repeated so often by Christian apologists. By now, however, it should be clear that just because Lewis has only presented us with three options does not mean we have to sit by meekly and accept them as the only possibilities.
Yet we cannot merely claim that it is a false trilemma - we have to come up with alternative possibilities while the arguer demonstrates that the above three exhaust all possibilities. Our task is easier: Jesus might have been mistaken. Or Jesus was severely misquoted. Or Jesus has been grossly misunderstood. We have now doubled the number of possibilities, and the conclusion no longer follows from the argument.
If someone offering the above wishes to continue, she must now refute the possibility of these new alternatives. Only after it has been shown that they are not plausible or reasonable options can she return to her trilemma. At that point, we will have to consider whether still more alternatives can be presented.
