Bad Kool-Aid: Introduction

The purpose of these "Bad Kool-Aid" articles is to supply easily linkable, short and biblically accurate answers to commonly expressed errors. When you encounter an error that is covered you can simply say "That's Bad Kool-Aid Man!" and link them to the article that answers what they wrote. At the time of writing this introduction I have 27 answers to common errors planed.

Click here to find all "Bad Kool-Aid" articles.

In various popular level debates about politics, religion or science there is a common way to insult your opponent while helping to ensure other people will be resistant to adopting your opponent's views. Claim that the opponent has been drinking the kool-aid or is asking you to drink the kool-aid. If you really want to insult and marginalize your opponent's following, claim that they have been "drinking the kool-aid." This phrase comes from a tragic event, the Jonestown Massacre.

The popular description of the kind of "kool-aid" that someone might be asking you to drink is a "Truthy Meme." According to Indiana.edu a Meme is an idea, value or pattern of behavior that is passed on from one person to another by imitation. I know a person who when he witnesses to non-believers and he pulls out a clever phrase or explanation he always sounds like the person he's copying. In fact, in these situations I tend to recognize the person he's imitating more than the man I'm listening too. The phrases he's using, and how he is using them are a "Meme."

Also according to Indiana.edu a Truthy Meme "relies on deceptive tactics to represent misinformation as fact."

Truthy things can seem like truth, they are very similar to truth but they are not actually true. However, after a while so many people are imitating them that it becomes increasingly hard to convince less informed people that they are not true. One good example of a Truthy Meme is that "What's true for me may not be true for you." I have heard people explain this to me thousands of times, I'm not actually exaggerating here.  However, the Law of Non-Contradiction settles the fact that this Truthy Meme is actually just plain old fallacy.

This is the start of what I expect will be a very long series of hopefully very short posts answering Truthy Memes which are prevalent in Christendom, or held about Christendom by non-believers. Of course my main focus will be the Truthy Memes perpetrated by Lordship Salvation proponents.

Normally I'm guilty of posting very long articles, which will contain some helpful information, but a lot of background information. The Bad Kool-Aid series will have very little background information. I will expect readers to read this introduction post to understand what I'm talking about. There will be long gaps between installments of this series, and sometimes there will be a rash of them. I'm hoping this will be a fast way for me to capture small bits of disinformation and the corrections without having to build a long over arching argument.  The idea was inspired as I listened to a preacher speaking about assurance, from the Lordship Salvation point of view. There were many instances where the man talked about things that are absolutely true. However, at one point he drew his line in the sand between him and truth by using the word "but."  As I listened I realized I could pick the sermon appart line by line, but this would end up being abusive to the people who follow him. So why not try to be helpful instead?

Finally the accompanying picture is a parody of the Bad Robot logo for the film production company of the same name.