Fun With Fallacies: Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor

Which fallacies are the good cardinal guilty of and why?
...he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme why he thought it was dangerous to be governed by reason alone. He said that "supposedly faithless societies" ruled only by reason were like those created by Hitler and Stalin, ripe for "terror and oppression". Full Story

These are the ones I identified in the course of five minutes. Can you identify any others?

* Part to whole Comparison fallacy - If its true that societies created by Hitler and Stalin were "supposedly faithless", that doesn't mean that all "supposedly faithless" society are like Hitler and Stalins or that "supposedly faithless societies" necessarily will end up like Hitler and Stalins.

* Faulty Analogy - Hitler and Stalins societies had more going on in them than just being "supposedly faithless".

* Causal Oversimplification - Ignores qualifiers that made Hitlers and Stalins societies "ripe for terror and oppression".

* Unrepresentative Sample - Stipulating that the two examples are valid, two bad examples are not enough examples to show a trend that "supposedly faithless" societies are likely to be "ripe for terror and oppression".

* Special Pleading - Because not only "supposedly faithless societies" were ripe for "terror and oppression". I know that a few in the catholic church leadership over the centuries have quite a bit of blood on thier hands.

* Appeal to Consequences - Simply asserts that "supposedly faithless societies" are "ripe for terror and oppression" without saying why.

* Appeal to Emotion - Trying to evoke strong negative emotions in relation to a society ruled by "reason alone"

* Non-Sequitur - Because I don't think that any rational person would say that Hitler "governed by reason alone". In my view, Hitler was a little insane.

Faulty reasoning in leadership is scary.

Its also interesting to note that his motivation to respect atheists seems to be driven by his "concern about the increasing unpopularity of the Christian voice in public life".

Hone your skills over at the LSAT Logic in Everyday Life podcast.

4 comments:

Eli said...

His argument, as phrased, is also irrelevant to his conclusion. He wants to say that areligious societies are inherently more dangerous than religious ones, but his evidence pertains to "supposedly" areligious societies (i.e., not actually areligious ones). Further, he's confusing two different issues. The public sphere ("Our life together in Britain") really is a different thing than the country as a whole because the latter leaves out private life, but he's voicing concerns over the latter based solely on the former without offering connections between the two.

In other sections, he makes totally confusing claims about religion, such as that God shouldn't be taken as a given or talked about with certainty. No? Then we should reject the Bible for presuming too much, not to mention the vast majority of religious leaders. One also has to wonder why he thinks religion is neutral while at the same time telling everyone that God is active in their lives. "Neutral," I was pretty sure, meant "not having any impact," but evidently he's using some other definition. I dunno if that's a fallacy in and of itself, but I can't understand how he could use the premise of religion's neutrality in an argument.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for participating larry,
in my view, its not as important to know what the label is for the fallacy as it is to know why its a fallacy.

It works just as well like this "its a fallacy because....."

nice job!

Don Martin said...

And of course, neither Hitler nor Stalin proposed "faithless" regimes. Hitler promoted the Aryan mythology and Stalin proposed the Superman. Both were articles of faith that served as cornerstones of society. What the good RC cardinal (and crows hate cardinals!) is advocating is there is no faith but Christianity, and that all societies must be Christian or built upon the Judeo-Christian philosophy. Which is inconsistent with his own argument for neutrality of religion and and the role of God in the public place.

All of which goes to show that cardinals wear those big hats for a reason. Never trust a man who wears a red robe in public.

Unknown said...

I love this article, i saw it a couple of days ago and it may me feel warm all over.

In it Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor basically admits that we Atheists have been smacking his church around and giving it a good hard kick in the reason.

He wants a more friendly and less acrimonious dialogue with atheists. Funny how he is only saying this now, when we are finally making the news, getting our acts together and getting publicity (some of which is even good publicity). He wants us to treat Jesus and christianity as a mystery? wooo-oooo-ooo!

So if we say, "Prove there was a jesus"
He can say "Its a mystery!"
If we say "Prove a biblical miracle ever actually happened"
He can say "Its a mystery!"
We can say "Prove the Jews ever were in Eygpt"
He can say "Its a mystery!"

Claiming his religion is a mystery makes it immune to criticism.

I want to know this.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor. Did Jesus actually exist as a real man who was also god? Did dhe perform real miracles? Did he really rise from the dead after being executed? Is there another real world separate from this where all dead christians live in paradise? Is there a real fiery world of torture where non-christians go? if the answer to these questions is anything but "yes", then why the hell should i believe in your god?

His whole approach seems to be backing away from anything provable and concrete. You can't have your position attacked if you don't have a position.