Misdirection

If you wish to claim some passages as reliable and others suspect, what do you use to decide which is which?

Similar to a way a human judge in a Court works, I look at all the available evidence and come up with an "on balance of probability" statement that I can accept.

Clearly some statements cannot be proved or disproved, so these are more likely to be believed on face value than not, by me. Some other statements, such as Lewis-isms, are self-evidently incomplete, in my opinion.

If someone tells you that there are two colors and two colors only you know that they are not telling you what you have measured with your own senses don't you? Maybe they are just blinded to the other colors and are telling as much of the way it is as they know, or maybe they have a hidden agenda? If it is the latter then what could that hidden agenda be?

For what the hidden agenda is, Lewis might say "It could be (X) or it could be (Y) - which do you think?" So the recipient of the Lewis-ism goes down the path of X or Y, falling into the trap laid down by Lewis. It could be that the agenda is (Z) - couldn't it?

Maybe not "false choices", but certainly "incomplete choices".

I first came across this blatant steering when I read "Mere Christianity", which is why I refer to it as a Lewis-ism. But since then, I have noticed that many who assume a position of power do this and that it is one of the chief mechanisms used by senior people on their subordinates. Just an observation.