On 24 Jun 2005, at 2:08 am, Dave Land wrote:
I never said that providing answers to these simple questions was
simple: that was your (possibly intentional) misinterpretation. But
you are right in that my ad hominem attack was unwarranted, if not
unprovoked. I apologize for it.
I accept your apology.
Here's a problem that I have with your ongoing attack on religion:
it relies on numerous logical fallacies:
The most common is the appeal to anecdotal evidence: a religious
person did an evil thing. Therefore, religion must be evil.
One instance would be an anecdote. Establishing a pattern of
behaviour from many instances isn't. If religion is so good why is it
so bad?
You also frequently appeal to ridicule: you present religious
people as ridiculous, with the unsupported implication that
religion is therefore ridiculous. Of course, you are engaging in
the appeal to repetition: religion must be evil, because you said
it over and over and over and over and over and over again. But
mainly, your fail to state your assumptions. It's not strictly a
logical fallacy, but it does cause your argument to be viewed with
suspicion. This is what Frank Schmidt was trying to get you to do:
to state with some clarity and completeness the assumptions behind
your repetition of ridiculing anecdotes.
One assumption is that 'what is good' is a hard question to which
religions provide incorrect answers. And if people think they have
the answer they stop asking the question. And that's bad. And bad is
evil :)
I have no reason to believe that this message will be met with
anything approaching serious consideration, but anticipate that a
sentence or two will be singled out for some kind of facile
ridicule. This is not an ad hominem attack, it is an extrapolation
from past experience.
It rolls off my back like a duck...
--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"A bad thing done for a good cause is still a bad thing. It's why so
few people slap their political opponents. That, and because slapping
looks so silly." - Randy Cohen.
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