Thought of the day

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Michael

One of the downsides of letting people know where I am in my career has been that it opens me up to illogical attacks. Namely, I have often had people point to my status as a student in order to discredit my positions. For instance, I have been told that my position that the process of development is not the same as the subjective concept of humanity comes from my unfinished education. If only I was a graduate, I would know better. (Ironically, one of the people making this claim had no degree in biology.) But now I am in a position where all I have is a single outstanding math course (to be taken not too far down the road). I have completed every core biology course plus a swath of biology electives. I’ve looked at development from an anatomical perspective. I’ve looked at it from a cellular perspective. I’ve looked at it from a genetic perspective. Yet, my position is exactly the same. Not a bit different.

It’s almost like demanding one be an authority in a subject in order to have a valid opinion on a particular point is a logical fallacy.

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Christian logic

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Michael

Let me start out with the obvious first: The Bible bears no relation to any actual science. It is a wildly inaccurate account of nature, it has no evidence for any of its significant claims, and it offers zero methodology for determining what is true. That said, I have an analogy I would like to make.

Christians love to look at their cute little holy book and see how it matches up to the world. Sometimes they’ll find something – a battle here or a town there. They never uncover anything of significance – a large boat or a big ol’ tomb, for instance – but the trivial things they discover seem to be rather important to them. The reason is clear: Any confirmation of something in their particular, cultural book is seen as indicative of the truth of the fundamental claims they make (such as Jesus’ existence and divinity, two things for which there is no convincing evidence). This makes for yet another logical fallacy by Christians.

To put things in perspective, imagine taking a 19th century science text and seeing where it matches up today. Except instead of saying, “Okay, these few things are true, but we know where the book has things wrong”, suddenly we’re taking the book to be entirely true. “Well, we can confirm that 19th century scientists knew X, and well, X is actually true, therefore Y and Z must also be true.” The flaw in logic is obvious here. And this all must make one wonder: If the flaw is so obvious in one place, why is it not obvious when religion is involved?

I don’t think it’s too difficult to figure out why Christians are so willing to make an exception to logic: they have no evidence for any of their major claims. Zero. Zip. Zilch. The only option that leaves them is to support their silly beliefs by proxy. It’s just too bad for them they haven’t been very good at doing that either.

Filed under: Religions | Tagged: , , | 16 Comments »