'I go to bed at night...

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
I have to agree with Mincing that logic/illogic is probably misapplied, and has been at least ever since Star Trek. For one thing, something can be logical without being right, and something can be illogical without being wrong.

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True. But you can ID a biased person by pointing out the huge gaping holes in their logic. For instance, let's try to determine how frightened we should be of any random Muslim person. What are the odds that the strangely dressed dark skinned person riding the NYC subway, or trying to build a community center, is a big evil terrorist?

Let's try bad logic:

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If we know that religious texts contain reprehensible instructions for adherents to follow, then it is logical to be wary of adherents to that religious text.

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Which applies to every religion and cult out there, not just to one religion in particular. For this claim to hold water, you would need to prove that Catholics are capable of ignoring the insanity in the Bible, while Muslims cannot do the same with the Koran.

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If we know that adherents of a particular religion are responsible for more religious-themed acts of terror than any other religion, it is logical to be wary of adherents to that religion in the absence of any mitigating data.

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Really Anthony? Really? What you just said is the logical equivalent to: if the majority of customers in a Fuddruckers restaurant is white, then all white people in the world must eat at Fuddruckers.

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Statistically, Muslims may be the group most likely to carry out a religious-themed act of terror. I don't have the statistics, but it may very well be an undeniable fact.

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I believe Niki posted these stats, and Muslims were not at all top on the list. They weren't even second. I think it was less than 10% of terror acts in recent history have been carried out by Muslims. (Niki, help? I can't find your post.)

But that number really doesn't matter anyhow, since the logic you built on it is not at all sound. And peace Anthony - I understand that this logic is NOT your way of thinking. But you're making a mistake to pass off logical arguments because some people misuse them. No, logic is not ethics, but in an emotional issue like this, logic is the best way to ID bias and emotional manipulation. As long as it's sound logic, and it's openly discussed and tested.

(You'll note how open Rappy is to discussing his own logic. As in - not at all.)

My logic?

the odds that any single Muslim is a terrorist

= # terrorist acts by Muslims / # Muslims in the world

= Slim to none



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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Hello,

The problem with 'logic fail' is not that the logic is typically bad in and of itself. It's that the logic stops so that the adherent can leap to a desired position or course of action.

Let us say that most religious terrorists are Muslim. I don't have these figures. It's a supposition for an argument.

One could then say that I am more likely to find a terrorist in a Mosque than in a Church. That's fine, as far as it goes.

However, like you pointed out, the chance of finding a terrorist at all is vanishingly small, much like the chance of getting hit by lightning in my living room. It's happened before, but it's bloody unlikely.

However, the bigot can make an argument against Muslims by stopping his logic at the point where it supports his argument, and then failing to continue.

Let us make a new supposition to take the argument further. Let us suppose that 1 in every 10 Muslims is out to destroy America. I don't mean they don't like America. I mean that they would take advantage of any opportunity to destroy America if it presented itself.

Now, some people would look at this alarming 10% statistic and declare, "Something needs to be done about these Muslims!"

And if you stop the logic there, well, it sounds good.

But if you don't stop thinking, and continue your thought process, you may realize that the only way to do something about these Muslims is to make some pretty fundamental changes to the nature of America. The most apparent way to stop the Muslim Menace is to destroy America for them, and make it into something else. Something that doesn't tolerate the presence of Muslims.

But you never see these people starting their argument with the idea that we should make fundamental changes to America or destroy its basic principles. You hear them arguing that we ought to Save America from the Muslims. They don't say how, exactly. Those are the sorts of details that might alarm people, or even themselves if they were to voice it out loud too soon.

And yet, those kinds of details tend to work themselves out once you embrace the premise. Kind of like if you agree that all severely handicapped people are drains on society, and something ought to be done about them.

Well, once you agree to that premise, then you open yourself up to a lot of reprehensible stuff that you wouldn't otherwise consider. But first, the premise must be embraced.

Right now, a lot of people are in the Islam = Evil stage of the game. It's an easy argument, since the religious text has many awful excerpts to choose from. You can also select your special sampling of Muslims and show them doing evil things. You can demonstrate aspects of their society that are barbaric and have troubling inequality. It can all be made very logical. Once they get enough people on board with that, and the fact that *something* has to be done, then they can work out the next step of the ultimate Solution.

Meanwhile, people who don't stop the logic train at the first stop realize that buying the premise leads to destroying the very thing you wanted to protect.

We have a (mostly) secular government that operates on principles that are (mostly) divorced from religion. I say mostly, because for every 10 practices divorced from religion you're liable to find 1 that isn't. But it's a good ratio, and it's changing for the better as time goes by.

The problem that 'barbaric' Muslim nations have is that they often exist in a religious country whose laws are not divorced from theocracy. Any such nation will tend to be oppressive at best.

So our best shield against barbarism is the continuing strengthening of the separations between church and state, and the continuing strengthening of the rights of the individual. Preserving that shield requires Muslims to be tolerated, along with Satanists and Scientologists and Catholics. Break the protections to target anyone, and you are holding a paper shield while handing the enemy a torch.

Anyone who follows their logic past the first stop can find thi

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Hello,

I'd like to add something else. I say above that the 'bigot' can do X. Well, anyone can, really. And anyone probably has.

A comedian once joked that the reason the thing you're looking for is in the last place you look is obvious. Once you find it, you stop looking.

So once your logic reaches the place you want to go, it's common to want to get off.

It's a constant challenge to keep going and explore all the possible adventures and misadventures of a policy or philosophy. However, doing so yields positive results. At a minimum - a grain of wisdom.


--Anthony



Due to the use of Naomi 3.3.2 Beta web filtering, the following people may need to private-message me if they wish to contact me: Auraptor, Kaneman, Piratenews. I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

Let us say that most religious terrorists are Muslim. I don't have these figures. It's a supposition for an argument.

One could then say that I am more likely to find a terrorist in a Mosque than in a Church. That's fine, as far as it goes.

However, like you pointed out, the chance of finding a terrorist at all is vanishingly small, much like the chance of getting hit by lightning in my living room. It's happened before, but it's bloody unlikely.

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So because the probability of a Muslin terrorist killing you is remote, we should strip search little old ladies and pretend that they are just as likely to be terrorists. I understand there is almost no chance I personally will get killed by a terrorist, but I don't want to see little old ladies get blown up because you're to much of a pussy to accept the fact that stopping Muslim terrorists requires looking in the Muslim population not in an old ladies anus.

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Apropros of nothin, yanno...

Them Syrians actually DO brew a decent beer - pick yourself up a bottle of Al-Chark sometime if you can find one.

-F

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