Category Archives: Practical Dialogue Tips

After going through the fire of 3,000+ conversations with pro-choice people, we’ve learned a lot of things that create an environment in the conversation where the other person is more likely to change their mind. These are some of those nitty-gritty dialogue tips.

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Watch My Mock Debate with Soulation’s Jonalyn Fincher

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A few weeks ago I posted the link to an interview that Soulation recorded with me about how pro-lifers can love pro-choice people better while discussing an emotional issue like abortion. We had decided during that interview to record a bonus mock debate, with Jonalyn playing the pro-choice position, but it was lost due to technical difficulties. We decided to record again after several Soulation readers requested to see the debate.

I’m glad we did. It was a good chance to show in real-time what my conversations on college campuses usually look like. They’re usually a little different than this, as Jonalyn played both a very inquisitive pro-choice person, (so I spent more time talking than I usual do on campus,) and Jonalyn also played a very philosophically savvy pro-choice person. I think most pro-choice people are very smart, but I don’t talk to a lot of people on campus that have spent a ton of time thinking and reading about this issue. Jonalyn managed to combine a bunch of the best arguments that I think exist, including a pro-choice biblical view that I’d never heard of. So you can watch me do my best to respond thoughtfully to every challenge Jonalyn came up with, while keeping the way the arguments interact with each other clear in my mind.

Jonalyn Fincher

As I said before, I highly recommend you follow Dale and Jonalyn’s work. It’s both important and unique.

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“Pro-Life Magazine” Interviews Me About Using Your Head AND Heart

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Pro-Life Magazine is a FREE digital magazine covering pro-life issues. They published an interview with me for their first issue, as well as interviews with Dr. Maureen Condic, Dr. Christopher Kaczor, Kelsey Hazzard and others.

You can get the magazine on your iPad or iPhone, or you can download a free PDF if you subscribe to their email list first.

Here are some of the questions they asked me for their piece on my work:

  • Do pro-choice people see pro-lifers as combative?
  • What are some common mistakes that pro-life people make, and how can we avoid them?
  • What are the most common pro-choice arguments you hear today?
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My Interview with Soulation’s Jonalyn Fincher

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My new favorite Christian organization Soulation just published an interview with me about how pro-lifers can love pro-choice people better while discussing an emotional issue like abortion.

I hope you enjoy it, and I highly recommend you follow Dale and Jonalyn’s work. It’s both important and unique. (One of my favorite combinations!)

Click the screenshot below to watch the interview at Soulation’s website.

Josh Brahm on Emerald City

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The Best Way to Expose Logical Fallacies: Don’t Call Them by Name

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Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.

In my last post I talked about something I’ve been noticing recently, that people, especially pro-life nerds like me, are tempted to talk about logical fallacies all the time in conversation. There are several dangers to this. I’ve argued already that the first danger is accusing somebody of a logical fallacy when they didn’t actually commit one.

iStock_000015937656XSmallIf you dedicate yourself to educating yourself on what the logical fallacies actually are before bringing them up, you will be a more effective debater. But there’s a good, better, best aspect to exposing logical fallacies while creating good dialogues with people.

I think the best way to expose logical fallacies is to note the specific fallacy mentally and then use questions to show the person the problem, without name dropping the specific fallacy.

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You Should Know What a Logical Fallacy Actually Is

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One danger of accusing people of committing a logical fallacy is that you may not actually know what you’re talking about.

Last month I wrote a blog post that a colleague of mine whom I admire disagreed with. She specifically accused me of writing a post that was “full of fallacies.” But when she was asked for examples of these fallacies, she couldn’t name one actual fallacy in the piece. She was only able to name something she didn’t like about the piece. (And, as it turned out, she was objecting to an argument I didn’t even make.)

I’ve been noticing this tendency more often lately. People, especially pro-life nerds like me, are tempted to talk about fallacies all the time in conversation. I think this is often because being able to point out fallacies seems to help us quickly demonstrate the problem with the other person’s reasoning, and it kind of shows that we know what we’re talking about when it comes to logic and argumentation. To put it simply, it makes us sound smart. But there are several dangers to this. I’m going to talk about one of them in this post, and another in a followup.

The first danger is talking about fallacies when you don’t actually know what you’re talking about.

you keep using that word