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Logical Fallacies - just for your information

guess one should be a lawyer or professor to post in a simple forum... does intent count? well i will be posting less and less instead of being fun this has become a lessen on who is smarter then who..i am not a smart one...
 
reba said:
guess one should be a lawyer or professor to post in a simple forum... does intent count? well i will be posting less and less instead of being fun this has become a lessen on who is smarter then who..i am not a smart one...
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It helps that we strive to see bias and to debate properly.I'm not saying we will won't have a tendency to ignore our hot buttons and nature to use fallacies to keep our position safe.However, we should strive for the truth.
 
reba said:
guess one should be a lawyer or professor to post in a simple forum... does intent count? well i will be posting less and less instead of being fun this has become a lessen on who is smarter then who..i am not a smart one...
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I have been on a forum where a Christian lawyer posted...yeah, it was something else. But it's good because then you learn how to think through what you believe and why and see where any issues are. Personally I like to know where problems are in my arguments. Of course, pointing out fallacies doesn't necessarily need to be done all the time, as there are other ways of going about things to bring someone to the truth or point out an error in reasoning.
 
I generally distrust any claimants to "all truth" if they do not bear, personally, the self deprecation that comes with that territory and claim.
 
WIP said:
I have a question. I am certainly no scholar or learned debater but would it not be correct to say that defining an argument as one or more of the various fallacies are in fact a matter of one's interpretation? In other words, what I view as a red herring may not be viewed as a red herring way by another.
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No, WIP. Logical fallacies have to deal with errors of logic and not errors of interpretation.

You don't seem to be understanding the meaning of red herring. A red herring fallacy is when I say something about your post that is not related directly to what you stated. I'm off and running with another topic that 'sounds' like yours but it is not the same topic. Red herrings are ways to push one's agenda by diverting attention away from the specifics of your topic.

Oz
 
smaller said:
I generally distrust any claimants to "all truth" if they do not bear, personally, the self deprecation that comes with that territory and claim.
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What has this comment to do with the topic of logical fallacies?
 
Well the A&T has become a free for all forum any one can post about what ever they wish...I am saddened to see the changes over the last couple of months.. but that is the way of society in general.
 
WIP said:
I have a question. I am certainly no scholar or learned debater but would it not be correct to say that defining an argument as one or more of the various fallacies are in fact a matter of one's interpretation? In other words, what I view as a red herring may not be viewed as a red herring way by another.
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Well, let's look at the definition again.

A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
1. Topic A is under discussion. (Example: the topic is raising elephants for fun and profit.)

2. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
(I state that one must do (some specific things) to keep elephants healthy and happy.
The person with the opposing view offers his expert knowledge on keeping salt water fish in an aquarium as evidence that some statement I made about raising elephants is incorrect but keeping salt water fish in an aquarium has nothing to do with keeping elephants healthy and happy. It is an entirely different topic.)

3. Topic A is abandoned.
(We start talking about keeping the water for his fish at the proper salinity which has absolutely nothing to do with keeping my elephants healthy and happy.)


This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion does not count as an argument against a claim.

There is a precise definition of what a "red Herring Fallacy" is. If my interpretation of that definition is wrong, it does not have any effect on the definition. What a "Red Herring" actually is does not change if I have an incorrect understanding of it.

A trap into which people commonly fall is that they mistake something that is SIMILAR to the topic being discussed as being THE SAME AS the topic under discussion.

For example;
Person A says, The Holy Ghost enables us to understand scripture.
Person B says, "I saw a ghost once and it didn't help me understand anything."

Both people were talking about a "ghost" (a spirit) but the Holy Ghost is not a ghost of folklore. The Holy Spirit is not identical to the spirit that person B saw.
For person B to use the experience of the ghost he saw as evidence that person A's claim is wrong is a "RED HERRING FALLACY." It in introducing an irrelevant, different topic as evidence. The experience of the random ghost/spirit has no bearing on the discussion of what the Holy Spirit (a very specific Spirit) does or does not do.

Hope that helps.

iakov the fool
 
reba said:
Well the A&T has become a free for all forum any one can post about what ever they wish...I am saddened to see the changes over the last couple of months.. but that is the way of society in general.
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No, reba, it has not become a free for all, but it is dealing with what one confronts in apologetics. If we want to engage in a defense of the faith, we need an understanding of logical fallacies and how others use them. That's the topic of this thread.

Oz
 
reba said:
well i will be posting less and less instead of being fun this has become a lessen on who is smarter then who.
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Why would you post less?
You have plenty to say.
And it's not about being smart.
It's about learning something new and you're certainly smart enough to do that.
 
OzSpen said:
What has this comment to do with the topic of logical fallacies?
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Please don't start with me.

Here's a taste of logic. No person, none of us, can make a claim to "all truth." Therefore all forms of man's logic are LIMITED. This is neither a red herring or a strawman, but a hard line fact. Any logical determination by man is, by it's nature of lack of all information, LIMITED.

Man's logic has it's inherent built in faults and those faults are IN man, and that's really all there is to the conversations about logic. No forms of man's logic are going to gain us "all truth."

Every form of man's logic should come with this automatic disclaimer:

"I don't know everything."
 
reba said:
we all have opinions.. and your scripture back up is what?
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Logical fallacies are apart of apologetics and while not stated in the Bible directly. If I ask you why you believe and resort to ad homenims,red herrings to defend it.I would wonder if you had the truth.
 
jasonc said:
Learning logical arguments doesn't mean nor imply once must claim omniscience.
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When we adhere to the Om's we adhere to the claim that we are by nature, "less than same." I have no problem accepting this as a logical fact.
 
reba said:
we all have opinions.. and your scripture back up is what?
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Do I need a scripture reference to back up a statement of fact.
If I say 10 X 10 = 100, do I need to back that up with scripture?
If I say "science" is "knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation" my source for that was the Miriam-Webster dictionary, not the Bible.
The list of logical fallacies describes common errors that everybody makes. It isn't about theology so looking for a scriptural back up for them is like looking for one to back up the arithmetic or the definition of "science."

Am I making any sense?????
Or just muddying the water?


jim
 
reba said:
jasonc the next point of the A&T may just be your/my lack of sentence structure..
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If you noticed.In these last few posts I have been using better grammar.Im just lazy here.I could post counseling statements, ratings of sergeants where you will see a difference.I will say that the army has its own rule on ratings with grammar.For example ,no periods,always in past tense,no capitals at the beginning and capitalize Rank ,Mos and other things.
 
Some of the most twisted forms of logical fallacies reside in theology.

For example, it is one thing to say God Is Sovereign, such as what was claimed by the infamous determinist, John Calvin. The dire mistake in such claims is when a man or men claim to have a lock on what that is and consists of. That claim is in fact a logical fallacy. A person can not claim Divine Sovereignty and then proceed to put that claim in a box of their own designs.

The Word is far more complex than we give HIM credit for. It defies such notions.
 
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