Did I commit the Nos Quoque fallacy?

I am a believer in the bible and in a discussion with other believers, I made a comparison with modern day prophets to biblical prophets and argued that both have undergone similar situations. For example, the apostle Paul suffered injuries when he was stoned to near death. I compared that to one modern day prophet who suffered a severe head injury at a young age when a stone was thrown to her face. My argument, basically, is that if this modern prophet cannot be trusted with her words and writings because she suffered this traumatic experience (since she is accused of mental problems due to it), can Paul be trusted because he suffered the same fate? I explained later, in my defense and in defense of the bible, that just because a person suffers an injury like this does not necessarily mean they now have mental issues. A second example I gave, was in comparing a disappointment a modern prophet suffered due to expecting an event would take place when it did not, to a disappointment the bible prophets also went through when they thought an event would take place but it did not. Again in defense I explain that their disappointment was due to their own misunderstanding of the scriptures, and not due to the scriptures themselves.

I gave other examples, and for these comparisons I was accused of the nos quoque fallacy. To be clear, I did admit that both groups made mistakes, but I also tried to explain that we should be fair in our analysis, that we should not accuse one person of something when the other person made the same or similar mistakes. Rather, we should seek to understand what took place in each individual circumstance without excusing their mistakes.

I noticed I was making these comparisons between a modern day prophet and a biblical prophet, NOT between the individuals I was discussing this with (who got offended) and the modern prophet. I am wondering is this particular detail is relevant or not.

Thanks

First, I never heard of a "Nos Quoque fallacy." It think you meant ad hominem (tu quoque) ?

My argument, basically, is that if this modern prophet cannot be trusted with her words and writings because she suffered this traumatic experience (since she is accused of mental problems due to it), can Paul be trusted because he suffered the same fate? 

Let's break this down (removing supernatural components to sidestep any biases).

Person A suffered head injury and made claim X.
We can't trust claim X because of the head injury sustained by person A.
Person B suffered head injury and made claim Y.
Therefore, to be consistent in our reasoning, we can't trust claim Y.

I would say that this is a strong argument. Of course, details matter. One can call false equivalence if the head injury was significantly different or the claims made were in a different class. For example, if person A claimed that aliens anally probe them nightly and we don't trust that claim, but person B claims that they had pancakes for breakfast, it doesn't make sense to apply the same level of skepticism to person B's claim. Of course, if person B had a history of living in a fantasy world where even mundane claims are fabricated, then we shouldn't trust any claim equally.

The idea that prophets exist aside, in a worldview where prophets do exist, your reasoning appears to be consistent. I see no particular fallacy given the details you provided.

Let's see if we can peel this back as it is both discursive and a tad incoherent. Just going on what is being presented there are several problems that must be sorted out and better defined.

Firstly we have to zero in on what you mean by the term prophet. I understand that some Christian denominations (assuming you are a Christian) refer to their entire congregation as prophets. Others, like the Church of LDS reserve the title for their elderly leaders and church hierarchy. So it's more of a title than a spiritual gift and presumably can be bestowed on anyone without supernatural credentials.

We have no evidence presented here that they actually possess extra-sensory superpowers of prescience or foresight. We do have evidence that the gift of prophecy itself has been falsified over and over again. So, It's a dubious proposition at best.

The next problem is in your comparison of the biblical figure Paul being stoned with some random modern female getting hit in the head with a rock as both "prophets". 

So, you seem to be claiming:

The Apostle Paul was nearly stoned to death. 

The Apostle Paul had the gift of prophecy

Therefore, modern-day Sally, who was also hit in the head with a rock could be considered a prophet.

This falls under a wide variety of ludicrousness, but there's not so much a fallacy as it is just a dumb connection.  

We don't know anything about this modern female other than the fact that she was hit on the head with a rock and that you believe she might be considered a prophet because of it. 

The accusation that this is a "nos quoque" argument is equally nonsensical. A Tu Quoque Fallacy is an ad hominem variant that intends to discredit the opponent's argument by attacking the opponent's own personal behavior and actions as being inconsistent with their argument, therefore accusing hypocrisy.

I don't see any hypocrisy in your argument. It is still nonsense, but there's nothing inherently hypocritical about it. It's just nonsense.

Now, there is evidence of traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, schizophrenia,  psychological and neuropathological anomalies as well as certain entheogenic experiences that can bring on both beatific and hellish visions of a mystical and religious nature, that is a fact, but it hardly qualifies one as being a prophet in the classical biblical tradition. ( See: The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by Harvard University psychologist and philosopher William James.)

The other problem inherent in your argument is somewhat anachronistic. Saul/Paul's original mystical vision and famous conversion occurred much earlier than the Acts account of his narrow escape from being stoned to death. In other words, any claim to a gift of prophecy had long been established before he got himself bonked in the head with a barrage of rocks from an angry Jewish community.

 

 

This post is so rambling and unfocused that I place it under the "Poor Communication" heading.

I'm seeing examples of non sequitur in what I understand of the situation.  Here is my understanding of the flow:

Assumption 1: both the apostle Paul and the modern day girl are accepted as "prophets".

Assumption 2: both Paul and the modern girl were struck by stones, although perhaps to differing degrees.

Assumption 3: the modern girl cannot be trusted with her words and writings.

Assumption 4: the modern girl experiences unspecified mental problems that were shown to be caused by being struck by a stone.

I refer to the above as "assumptions" because while they may or may not be correct, no obvious evidence is provided to support or refute any of them.  

The argument seems to be:

Premise 1: If the modern girl experiences mental problems, and

Premise 2: if those mental problems result from being struck by a stone, and

Premise 3: If experience has shown that some (or all) of the modern girl's words and writings cannot be trusted, then

Conclusion: Then it was the stone strike that caused her words and writings to be untrustworthy and any other prophet suffering a stone strike cannot be trusted either.

Premises 1 and 2 seem connected and independent of Premise 3.  What's missing is the link between either the head injury or mental problems on one hand and the non-trustworthiness of her statements.  Perhaps there's an additional unspecified assumption that any sort of mental problem necessarily renders one's statements untrustworthy – however, I'm not sure that's a valid general claim.  

Perhaps if we knew more about the precise form of "mental problems" faced by the modern girl, we might be able to close the gap a bit (or extend it to Paul), but I suspect not.

At best, we have an argument based on correlation (two things happening together), not causality (one thing happening because of the other).

Even if we did accept that the modern girl's "mental problems" are the reason for which her statements are untrustworthy, we have another non sequitur as we leap from the modern girl to Paul.  At best the argument would look something like.

Premise 1: Modern girl prophet's mental problems render her statements untrustworthy.

Premise 2: Being struck by a stone caused modern girl prophet's mental problems.

Premise 3: Paul was struck by many stones.

Conclusion A: Paul's injuries must have resulted in the same mental problems experienced by the modern prophet.

Conclusion B:  Therefore, since we can't trust what the modern prophet with an unspecified "mental problem" tells us, we can't trust what Paul tells us.

Among the non-sequiturs I see are:

• between Premise 3 and Conclusion A: no evidence was presented to show that Paul experienced the same "mental problems" that seem to underly the untrustworthiness of the modern prophet's statements.  The intervening assumption seems to be that if Paul was struck by many stones, he must have suffered from the same (or perhaps even more severe) problems as the modern girl after her single stone strike.  Perhaps that's a valid assumption, but there is nothing in the argument to support it.
• between Conclusion A and Conclusion B: the link connecting Paul and the modern girl seems to be that they are both claimed to be "prophets" and that they were both struck by stones – not that they share any common mental (or other) condition to bring their statements into question.

While there might be an implication that "mental problems stemming from stone injuries" have caused statements to be untrustworthy, nothing is presented as evidence.  We're left with little more than two stone strikes suggesting that we can't trust prophets who were struck by stones.

If we were to follow this logic, then we could find a recognized and trusted contemporary prophet and throw a stone at her or him thereby rendering all of his or her future claims untrustworthy.  That seems a bit of a stretch!

In addition, there may be a hasty generalization from assuming that a sample of 1 (the new, and presumably untrustworthy, prophet) provides sufficient information to generalize to other prophets.