Teaching Kids To Spot Bad Arguments Online

We walk through a simple way to raise kids who think clearly, stand firm in Christ, and respond with grace when online debates turn to labels. We define three common fallacies and give a three-question tool to turn noisy threads into discipleship moments.

• defining resilient logic as stewardship of the mind 
• logic working within a biblical worldview 
• ad hominem and rooting identity in Christ 
• straw man and how to gently correct 
• appeal to emotion and why feelings aren’t final 
• Gen Z’s information overload and moral confusion 
• three questions: truth, impact, mission 
• a practical family challenge to analyze one viral post

We would love it if you guys went on and gave us a rating and review. Only if it's a five. We currently have a perfect five star on Apple Podcasts. We do. So we would love for you guys to keep that going and give us a review, an actual text, write out the review. Also be sure to subscribe so you don't miss our next episode.

Send any questions you want answered to podcast@waynechristian.org

This podcast is presented by Wayne Christian School- A Christ-centered community school whose mission is to assist parents and churches in the education of their children from a biblical worldview to impact their world for Christ. You can learn more at waynechristian.org 

Transcript

From Thoughtful Posts To Labels

Nate 0:00

We've all been there before, scrolling through a thread, which was your first mistake, and someone posts a very thoughtful, even biblical perspective on a topic. And what happens next? Was it a civil debate? Good social discourse? Not even close. The first reply isn't a counter-argument. It's just you're a hateful bigot. No logic, no evidence, just a label designed to shut down the conversation.

Luis 0:28

That is the liquid culture in a nutshell. When people can't dismantle your position with the truth, they destroy your character with a label. If we don't teach our kids how to spot these bad arguments, they will eventually be seduced by them.

Nate 0:51

Welcome to Equipped for Impact, the podcast designed to assist Christian parents, leaders, and educators to raise up the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ. We're your hosts. I'm Nate. And I'm Lewis. And we are glad you're here with us today, where we're talk tackling this topic of resilient logic. So, Lewis, what what even is resilient logic?

Luis 1:17

Nate, some parents might hear logic and think it's just for the debate team. But for the Christian, logic is a matter of stewardship. We're commanded to love God with all of our minds.

Nate 1:30

Yeah, and that's what culture is working over time to make our minds and and malic, you know, shape them so that they're just they're just mush, right? And so what we need to do is we need to fight back against that. And that's an important thing for us as parents as we're discipling our children to help them think critically about what's going on around us.

Logic And A Biblical Worldview

Luis 1:52

Yeah, so we live in a what is called a post-logical age where feelings have become the final core of appeal. And then if an argument feels unkind, our culture says it must be false. But scripture tells us in Proverbs 14, 15 that the prudent gives thought to his steps.

Nate 2:13

So logic isn't about being right, uh, it's about being prudent, it's about discernment and thinking through these topics from a biblical perspective.

Luis 2:23

Yeah, and we should want to move our kids from because the Bible says so, which is true, to understanding why the Bible is the only logical foundation for reality. One of C.S. Lewis's famous quotes is I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun, S-U-N, has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. And so logic is that lens that helps our kids see through the shifting sands, through the liquid culture to just the post-logic environment that they're living in here in 2026.

Naming The Big Three Fallacies

Nate 3:09

Yeah, I think that's really important for us. You know, just that C.S. Lewis quote. I love that, Lewis, because it um, you know, it it really helps us see how we kind of work through these things and how the Bible, like we talk about biblical worldview a lot around here. And and you guys that have listened to our podcast, you know, like we we want to train our kids to see everything from a biblical worldview. And and the Bible and logic don't, they're not opposed to each other, right? It just makes sense. And so as we're teaching them what the Bible says, we also need to teach our kids how to think well using that biblical lens. So I really, I really appreciate that. I think this is also an important time to point out that as we go through and think about things logically, we know that logically you can eat French toast any time of day.

Luis 3:59

You know, I think that we could disprove the logic behind that pretty easily.

Nate 4:06

I mean, it's bread with eggs and milk and and yummy goodness that I think is good any time of day. And cinnamon, right? Cinnamon is nutmeg if you do it right. So you put nutmeg on. Absolutely. Do you put nutmeg on your French toast? No, I don't think so. No nutmeg? Mm-hmm. Okay.

Luis 4:22

Butter, cinnamon, sugar, all before 10 30. It just it just makes sense.

Nate 4:27

It just makes sense. It just makes sense. It's logical.

Luis 4:29

Yeah, it's logical.

Nate 4:30

I uh disagree with you here, but we're gonna keep moving on.

Luis 4:33

Should I insult you? Like, wouldn't that be the next step? I think so.

Nate 4:38

Which is actually where we're going next. So so to give you guys you know just some really clear takeaways, you know, that's we're all about getting practical with this. If you can kind of name some of the logical fallacies, and we're gonna try and not make this too like academic here, but if you can name the logical fallacies, you'll be a little bit better at at recognizing them, whether you do them yourself or others kind of are pointing those towards you or your children, right? And so you can help your kids recognize them as well. So, Lewis, let's break down kind of the big three logical fallacies that will show up specifically in in comment sections, you know, around social media.

Ad Hominem Explained For Kids

Luis 5:18

Yeah, so like if your kids are on TikTok, Instagram, Discord, Facebook, like these are popping up. And the first one is ad hominem, which is Latin for to the man. And so when you take that logical fallacy, you are attacking the person instead of the argument. So you're not debating whether French toast is appropriate to eat after 10 30. It's not, but I would be attacking Nate because of his choice to do that. So I might insult him. I might assault him.

Nate 5:55

So you would say like only dumb people limit breakfast just to before 1030.

Luis 6:02

Or you could say that only not non-cultured people eat breakfast after 10 30. I'm surprised you didn't say like uncultured swine or something like that. You know, so if someone calls your child a name because of their faith or because of the position that they're taking, teach them to ask, does that label change the truth of what I have said? You know, if we want to raise kids who who are bold in truth, but full of grace, we we need to make sure that we help them think through what scripture says about them, right? And scripture reminds us that we are wonderfully created, right? We are God's workmanship, we are his masterpiece. And so I think this is just a fair question for our students to ask whenever they're debating or engaging in an argument and somebody attacks their character, somebody attacks them for what they believe.

Straw Man And Gentle Correction

Nate 7:02

Yeah, and I think that that goes back to what we've said this multiple times, right? It's important to have our foundation, our identity solid, right? And so as you are building your kids to be resilient and and focused on, you know, who God says they are, not who the world says they are, they will be less susceptible because these are gonna come at them eventually, right? The attacks on them and their character instead of the truth that they're standing for. And so that makes it even more important for like where 1 Peter 3.15 talks about we're giving a reason for the hope that's in us and we're doing it with gentleness and respect, right? We're not gonna retaliate in kind with these ad hominem attacks, but but we can also be resilient because we know they're gonna come to us, at us as Christians. So so the second one, I think we can jump into this this second one. So the first one is ad hominem, right? To the man, they're attacking your character. The second one is called a straw man argument. And this is when somebody misrepresents your view to make it easier to attack who you are.

Luis 8:04

And this is very common. Like, like you're gonna see this probably more than any of the other logical fallacies that are out there because people are so quick to try to misrepresent your position. So they might say something like, Oh, you're a Christian, so you must be one of those people that hates anybody that's different from you, right? Like that's that's a straw man. And so you need to teach your kids to gently correct the premise, right? And say, that isn't what I believe. That's not what the Bible teaches. May I share what the Bible actually says about loving our neighbors? You know, I don't do it anymore. And you might be learn, like you might be surprised to learn that when I was younger, like I used to engage in some Facebook debate, right? Whether it was politics, whether it was MySpace debates. No, you know, because I was too young for the MySpace debates. Like it was all about like the top eight. You rearrange your top degree. I would rearrange my top eight. But in Facebook, I was in college in early 30s whenever Facebook was was kind of doing its thing. And and I used to engage in some of those, but anytime that that that I would engage and and it it came out that I was a Christian, like people like immediately, it was like that target or that label created this target on my back where people could misrepresent what I actually believed or what I was saying.

Appeal To Emotion And The Vibe Trap

Nate 9:30

Yeah, yeah. And that's I mean, you see it a lot on social media and even in inner, you know, interpersonal interactions, especially if you don't know the person, you know, they'll try and they'll try and smear you. They take an extreme version of a Christian teaching and then be like, oh, well, you know, you you bel you believe, you know, people who don't believe in Jesus are going to hell. So you, you know, just hate everybody who doesn't believe in you, and is like, well, no, that's why I'm telling you the truth. Yeah. Yeah. Is because I don't want you to go to hell. You know, not I'm out there excited to send people to hell. You know, and so that is an example of a straw man argument. So then that kind of brings us to our third, which I think is maybe the most dangerous in 2026. Uh Lewis, what what is is that one there?

Luis 10:12

Yeah, that this one is known as the appeal to emotion. Or in the language of 2026, we might call it the vibe fallacy, right? Vibe. That's a good that's a trendy. That's a trendy. There's a trendy term. And so this is this is where someone says something like, How can your God be good if his rules make people feel restricted? And so this whole appeal to emotion, it prioritizes temporary happiness over eternal truth. And we have to teach our kids that feelings are real, but they are not the foundation of truth. Truth is anchored in the person of Jesus Christ, not on our emotional state or how we feel about a particular situation or thought.

Gen Z, Information, And Moral Confusion

Nate 11:07

Yeah, if you go back to our episode on biblical hospitality and immigration, like this is one that I think comes up a lot in that debate, right? Is you know, the the different sides try and throw the emotions up of the, you know, here here's America, and anybody who's not American is terrible, and so they need to get out of here. And it's kind of like this anger against other people coming in, right? There's the us versus them. And then on the other side, it's the oh, look at these poor children and how terrible it is, and like so they throw the emotional things up instead of like trying to think logically of yes, we need to have that hospitality and care for the stranger, but at the same time, we need to respect, you know, have good order in our country. And so, and so both sides will use that emotional argument on their side of it. So that's really good. So so Lewis, there's there's some fascinating research coming again from Barna about Gen Z and that type of information. And and it's funny because Gen Z is the most formally educated generation, yet they struggle with most with moral confusion. And I think a lot of it comes back to this whole idea of of logical fallacies.

Luis 12:19

Yep. And so because access to information is not the same as having wisdom, right? So they may have the information. And in previous episodes, we've talked about the anxious generation and and kids who who are tethered to the phones, but they're untethered from truth, right? So they they may have all of this information at their fingertips, but that doesn't mean that the information they're getting is actually true.

Nate 12:44

It's true, or they don't know what to do with it. Yes. Yeah. It's like I've got this information, so what do I do with it? And so so how do we help them kind of tether back to the truth? How do we help them build that anchor that's really gonna give them a solid, you know, st stable foundation to move from?

Three Questions: Truth, Impact, Mission

Luis 13:01

And I think that the way we would do that is by helping them ask three questions, okay? The first question is all about truth, right? What is the actual claim being made? What are they saying? And is it based on God's word? Like I think I think that's where we have to start, right? What what are they claiming to say? The second question is all about the impact, right? What is this argument training my heart to love or to mock, right?

Nate 13:33

So this has goes back to some of the questions we talked about with the uh the recent mini-series about having that foundation and you know the the heart being the center and directing our heart and loves in a certain direction.

Luis 13:45

Because something's always training us, right? Yeah and and and you may you may not think so, but you're constantly being trained in one regard. Like have you ever noticed that when you buy a new car or maybe you're out test driving a car and you make maybe you test drive a, I don't know, a Ford F-150 truck, right? Not a Chevy, not a Chevy, not a RAM? I would hope not. Rams are okay, but I would hope not a Chevy. Not a Chevy. But let's just say a Ford F-150, right? And you go when you test drive and you're thinking about buying it, right? Well, what's gonna happen next? You're gonna see all the Ford F-150s on the road, right? And it's gonna seem like every commercial that pops up on TV is all about Ford F-150. Your mind is now aware to those things, and so it's bringing it out. Well, see, marketers do a great job of that. Like if you have do you have an an an MVP card to Foodline? No. You don't? Okay. All right. I do not go to Foodline very often. If you shop at Audio Quality, that is exactly right.

Nate 14:47

There's no MVB card, there's no rewards, and you have to put a quarter in the buggy to get it out. And yes, I called it a buggy. You're welcome.

Luis 14:57

Well, I I don't know what to say, actually. But where I was going, the Foodline MVP card, it's it's a rewards card, but they use it to track what you buy. And so you scan your card, and there is this whole profile of you at Foodline, so that when you walk into Foodline and you scan your MVP card at the coupon kiosk that they have now, it's spitting out coupons for things that they think you might want to buy based off of your past buying behaviors.

Nate 15:30

And so it's like the very first algorithm. And now Facebook and all the the things have taken that way to the extreme, right?

A Simple Family Challenge And Closing

Luis 15:37

And so, and so everything is looking to trade us. And so that's what the second question is all about, right? What is this thing? What is this argument, what is this position training my heart to love or to mock? And then the third question is about mission, right? How can I respond in a way that points back to Christ? And that's how we help anchor our kids to the truth, right? What is the actual claim being made? What is the argument training my heart to love or mock? And how can I respond in a way that points back to Christ?

Nate 16:11

Yeah, yeah. And I love those questions, right? Truth, impact, mission. And that really does go back to even those questions we talked about, right? If you're focusing on the truth, you won't have ad hominem attacks, right? You also can kind of see through some of that vibe in the emotional kind of fallacies that people are putting up. You're focusing on the truth, and then you're thinking about yourself. Like, am I susceptible to some of these with the impact? And then you're really keeping it focused on the gospel. How can I point things back to Christ? So that's that's great. It really turns a frustrating, you know, internet moment into a discipleship moment for your children as they're they're thinking through that and and for yourself. So this is great. So so Lewis, can as we wrap up here, just kind of with this framework that we can use to talk to our kids and and train them up, you know, what encouragement would you give parents who are helping their kids think through logical responses in the world we're living in?

Luis 17:14

Well, parents, the goal of Resilient Logic is it's not to raise our kids to be internet trolls, right? There are plenty of them already. We are trying to raise kids who are kingdom influencers. We want them to have tough minds and we want them to have tender hearts. And so here's the challenge I would give you, right? Find one viral pose, find one popular song lyric, and just sit down with your child. Don't lecture them, but just ask them, right? What what's the claim here? Is this a good argument or is it just a loud one? And then teach them to spot a fallacy and teaching them to love the truth, right? Remember, you aren't just raising children who are gonna become lawyers, attorneys, doctors, or firefighters, or air forcem or plumbers, right? We're not just raising them for adulthood or a job. We are raising them for eternity.

Nate 18:16

Yeah, that's that's great. This raising them for eternity, raising them really to uh make an impact in the world for Christ. That's what we're all about here at Equipped for Impact. So thank you all for listening today. And uh, we would love it if you guys went on and gave us a rating and review. Um that really helps us. Only if it's a five. Only if it's a five. We currently have a perfect five star on Apple Podcasts. We do. Um so we would love for you guys to keep that going and give us a give us a review, an actual text, write out the review. I know it takes some time, but it'll do a lot to help other parents find resources like this so that they can help their children be equipped to impact the world for Christ. Uh so also be sure to subscribe so you don't miss our next episode. Uh, and until then, keep leading the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ.