Tag: Logic

Was It A Message From God?

It is the weekend….Sunday to be exact….and since I do not post much on religious stuff…..I will change that today….the day before I return to the silliness of politics…….

To begin with…..this post may irritate my more religious of readers and if it does….I apologize that your beliefs cannot handle a bit of scrutiny…..onward!

I have heard that this or that was a message from God…..first of all, do you really want to follow a God that would talk to any of these attle brained morons?  Second, I am just following a logical progression…..

There have been many that say that God is sending us messages…in one form or another……First, I recall a message the Pat Robertson talked about…it was Katrina and its effect was, according to him, a message from God and our sinful ways……then there was everybody’s favorite right wing dumbass, Glenn Beck….he informed the world that the massive tsunami in Japan that wrecked havoc was a message from God……and then there is my favorite female nutcase, Michele Bachmann, who said that it was a message from God that she run for the GOP nomination….but she was not finished with her contact with God……just last week she said that the Hurricane Irene was a message from God to Washington D.C. for politicians to wake and listen to the people…….I never knew God was all that political…..oh well….live and learn.

I will bet that you are wondering just where I am going with this chain of thought, right?

Let us step back about a month or so…..remember Indiana state fair?  When a country band called Sugar land was about to go onstage for their performance and a freak wind gust collapsed the stage they were about enter?

Well if you think out the logical progression of thought that the right wing dipsticks have then you can postulate that it was a message from God that he hates or at least disapproves of country music….PERIOD!

Side note:  The loss of life in everyone of the cases I cited were horrific and I am by NO means making light of their deaths…I am trying to point out that anything can be attributed to a message from God…..the sooner that some realize this fact….the sooner they can get on with their lives and learn to be happy……

Argumentum Ad Hominem

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Government/Politics/

Weekend is over…back to the grind…….

I try to help people understand what is going on in American politics and the world…….I recently wrote a post entitled “argumentum ad populum….basically it is if you say something long enough it becomes true….type of thinking…..read it for yourself….

lobotero.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/arg…

It explains the rhetoric on the cable news channels……I got to thinking about a logic class I took about a billion years ago and another phenom came to mind…..argumentum ad hominem…..

In logic, the argumentum ad hominem is typically described as having the following form:

  1. A makes claim B.
  1. There is something objectionable about A.
  1. Therefore, claim B is false.

There are three basic forms of argumentum ad hominem:

    1. Ad hominem abusive; also called argumentum ad personam. Instead of attacking an assertion, the argument attacks the person who made the assertion.
    1. Ad hominem circumstantial: Instead of attacking an assertion, the attacker points to the relationship between the person making the assertion and the person’s circumstances.

                           Ad hominem tu quoque: Literally translated as, “at the person, you too,” this could be    called the “hypocrisy” argument. In this form of attack, one argues that the person does not practice what he or she preaches.

Now think about any news that you may listen to on a daily basis…..does any of it sound anything like what I described?  Then think about the political talking points….if you look closely they follow this line of thinking almost every time….

As much as I would like to think of myself as “fair and balanced”…I do succumb to this from time to time….I think all writers and analysts do….it is part of the beast of analysis…..ALL TV analysts are guilty of this…regardless of which side of the political spectrum one stands…..

We as consumers of the news, must know these things and learn to look for the truth in ALL political statements….it may be there or it may be a total fabrication of the facts…if we do not search of the truth then we are destined to make totally irrational decisions about the governance of our nation….and we are seeing just how disastrous this could be……we are making decisions based on total untrue and falsified data….it is in its infancy right now….but the beast is growing rapidly and if not exposed to the cleansing light of truth….then all will be lost and this democracy will exist NO MORE!