Count the Logical Fallacies!

There's an e-mail making the rounds that I saw this morning, which gave me quite a chuckle. So of course I have to share it with you.

Spot the logical fallacies! I've included in parentheses the most blatant logical fallacy, but please feel free to comment with others. I left the original in all caps so that you can appreciate it in all its glory.

IN CHEMISTRY, HE TURNED WATER TO WINE. ("Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Carl Sagan – this applies to many in the list, but I'll just state it once. If something goes against the laws of nature and physics, you're going to need more evidence than just an apocryphal tale. This is also anecdotal evidence.)

IN BIOLOGY, HE WAS BORN WITHOUT THE NORMAL CONCEPTION. (ditto to the above)

IN PHYSICS, HE DISPROVED THE LAW OF GRAVITY WHEN HE WALKED ON WATER AND THEN LATER, ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN. (ditto to the above)

IN ECONOMICS, HE DISPROVED THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURN BY FEEDING 5000 MEN WITH 2 FISHES & 5 LOAVES OF BREAD. (once again, ditto to the above)

IN MEDICINE, HE CURED THE SICK AND THE BLIND WITHOUT ADMINISTERING A SINGLE DOSE OF DRUGS. (ditto again. In this case, if this story is accurate, Jesus was one of three things; a magician – common at the time, taking advantage of the placebo effect, or a scam artist in which 'healee' was a plant.)

IN HISTORY, HE IS THE BEGINNING AND THE END. (Meaningless statement)

IN GOVERNMENT, HE SAID THAT HE SHALL BE CALLED WONDERFUL COUNSELOR, PRINCE OF PEACE. (Again, meaningless statement and irrelevant)

IN RELIGION, HE SAID NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH HIM; (ditto to the above)

SO, WHO IS HE?
HE IS JESUS!

JOIN ME AND LET'S CELEBRATE HIM; HE IS WORTHY.

THE EYES BEHOLDING THIS MESSAGE SHALL NOT BEHOLD EVIL. (Baseless claim, easily disproved)

THE HAND THAT WILL SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYBODY SHALL NOT LABOR IN VAIN. (ditto to the above)

AND THE MOUTH SAYING AMEN TO THIS PRAYER SHALL SMILE FOREVER. (ditto to the above)


REMAIN IN GOD AND SEEK HIS FACE ALWAYS. AMEN. (How can anyone remain in God and his face always, when there is no evidence of his existence?)

IN GOD, I'VE FOUND EVERYTHING! (Even your keys? Baseless claim, easily disproved)

The Greatest Man in History Jesus had no servants, yet they called Him Master. (Appeal to the masses – meaningless)

Had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher. (Irrelevant – there were no colleges back then.)

Had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer. (No one had medicines back then.)

He had no army, yet kings feared Him. (Any rabble-rouser was feared, so Jesus is not special in this sense.)

He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world. (In a sense this is true. Just look at the number of Christians in the world today, as well as in history for the last 2000 years. Not to mention the Dark Ages.)

He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him. (Jesus was a political dissident and rabble-rouser. The Romans had no tolerance for such problem makers.)

He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today. (Baseless, unfounded claim. Anecdotal evidence. Apocryphal tale.)

I feel honored to serve such a Leader who loves us! If you believe in God and in Jesus Christ His
Son, you may wish to send it on.... If not, just ignore it.

If you ignore it, just remember that Jesus said. 'If you deny me before man, I will deny you before my Father in Heaven. (Open threat, also completely baseless.)

11-11-11

My friend received the following email recently:

This is the year of MONEY! In Chinese, this is a lucky number!
Check this out! This year we will experience 4 unusual dates.... 1/1/11, 1/11/11/,  11/1/11, 11/11/11!
So figure this out.. take the last 2 digits of the year you were born plus the age you will be this year and it will equal 111!
October of 2011 has 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays and 5 Mondays! This only happens once every 823 years! This is called Money Bags.
Send this to 11 friends within 11 minutes and in 4 days money will come to you! If you don't forward this, no money will come to you.
It Works! 

This was basically 3 different chain emails rolled into one. So here is a nice dose of reality.

• First, 1 and 11 are not auspicious numbers in China. Also, even numbers are generally considered luckier than uneven. But four is the exception as it sounds like "death" so it's considered unlucky and is avoided. 
• Forwarding a chain email only irritates the people you send it to. Nothing magical happens. There is no mechanism in physics or natural law that supports such a ridiculous notion. 
• If someone forwards an email to you to reach their demanded quota, email them after the time that they were promised their money/luck/etc. See how many times those people win the lottery in those days. (It can happen, but that would be random chance, nothing more)
• Yes, we do have 4 mildly interesting dates this year. So what? You can find these little number patterns almost any year. Nothing magical or amazing happened in the world on 1/11/11 or 11/1/11, did it? Nothing magical will happen on 11/1/11 or 11/11/11 either.
• It is also meaningless and completely arbitrary. Read about the history of calendars. We use the Gregorian calendar now. They are fairly arbitrary. 
• If the good luck comes from Chinese beliefs, this isn't even 2011 in their calendar. 
• Not to mention the year isn't 11, it's 2011. If you add that factor in, it all falls apart. 
• Every month that has 31 says include 5 occurrences of 3 days of the week that follow a simple pattern that repeats every several years. 
• Money bags in Feng Shui have nothing to do with 5, days of the week, or 4. In fact, remember 4 is very unlucky and 5 isn't luck for them either. A "money bag" in Feng Shui has 9 Chinese coins tied up in red cloth with a red ribbon, and is placed where money is received or generated. This is superstitious, arbitrary nonsense. 
• Adding the last 2 digits of your birth year to your age for this year will always come up with the last two digits of the current year. For example, I was born in 1969. I arbitrarily ignore the 19 (so that they trick will work) then at 42 to that and I'll get 111. Spooky, huh? Ok, in 2010 I would add 69 to 41 and get 110. Nothing magical. Just numbers doing their thing.

Resources:

• Snopes 
• Snopes
• Wikipedia
• Travel China Guide

As an added bonus, check out the ridiculous woo proclaimed regarding 11:11.

I Make a Grown Man Cry

I got an email the other day:

Hello Ma'am
I will be brief. I just want you to know that I stumbled upon your site by mistake after searching "Jesus please save me" in google. Looking through the images tab, I found the picture of the birthday cake to Christ. I then started reading through your posts to see what this site was all about. Within a few minutes, I found myself closing my browser and wiping away tears from my eyes. If only you saw His truth...

May God be with your heart.

He sent this to me 2 days ago. I thought you'd like to know that I have been paying special attention to my heart with a heart monitor and so far there has been no detection of God anywhere near it.

Spam For Christ

I found this in my inbox of my Heaving Dead Cats email yesterday and I thought it was so odd I wanted to share it with you. Obviously this person has no idea that I'm a card carrying godless heathen.

I like how he gets so specific about what he wants. I would think beggars shouldn't be so picky. Do you think people will actually do it? I bet they will if they are christians and feeling charitable. Which is sad. People need clean water, healthy food and decent shelter, and then they need education, not god and superstition.

Look where he lives. He says there is hunger and crisis, but their god keeps them fed and safe. Why doesn't god feed everyone? Why does god let so many people suffer? Anyway, here it is, in its entirety. Pretty ballsy, if you ask me!

Dear Friends in Christ,

I greet you out there in Jesus Lovely name. I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh to the Father but by me John 14:6. Jesus Christ is our salvation! I was searching for a study material when I came across your email and convinced you are a Christian.

Please do not be angry at this letter and undermine me because I am reaching you through the internet. God led me to your email and I know I’m blessed having to know you. I am a member of Living Faith Church. By His grace I’m a believer born again and blood bought( blood of Jesus). I am married with six children. I have a great passion doing the work of the master especially now I work on my own having not to be disturbed like when I was working 10 hours in the clerk office work.. I am not rich in this wordly riches but rich spiritually in Christ. I came to know Christ in 1984 and since then serve Him with commitment. I live in an area where there is much hunger and crisis but the Lord keeps us from them all. Our church is a small church with about thirty people. I am the church secretary as well as Adult Sunday school teacher. As you can see I can speak and understand English well as we are British colonised country.

Logical Fallacy Land Revisited

Last week I shared a crazy email I got from some crackpot (yes, that's a well deserved ad hominem attack there) trying to sell me noni juice.

Now, I think I can safely say that juice is good for you, to a certain extent. In many ways, it's way better to eat the whole fruit, because juice usually has a very high glycemic index since it no longer has any fiber in it, and usually has a lot of sugars that get metabolized quickly, spiking your blood sugar levels. But, most juice does have vitamins, some minerals, and antioxidants. While it's good to consume your vitamins and minerals in food, antioxidants have lately been under a lot of study, some positive, some negative. So while it's good to get them in food, it's probably not beneficial to go out of your way to consume huge amounts of them.

So noni juice, which comes from the noni tree in Southeast Asia, probably has some basic goodness to it. But it's not a miracle cure. See the above link to the wikipedia article that says that noni juice has never been proven to do much of anything and can't be sold as a medical cure for anything. It's just juice, people. Overpriced and sold as a multi-level marketing scheme.

The crazy email I shared the other day really tickled my funny bone because it was so ridiculous though. Some of you commented with great rebuttals (thank you very much!), but I thought I'd go through it myself with the name of the logical fallacy in bold after the false claim made. Here's the letter again:

I am an old guy who has lived in more places than most even visit, done more different types of things than most even consider doing, much actually less do. And I have had many more professions than most. (Appeal to Irrelevant Authority. So he's an active old guy who can't hold a job. Irrelevant)

Tell your Senator to Stop the Federal Funding of Religious Schools

Last night Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) filed a D.C. voucher amendment to the second jobs bill under consideration by the Senate.  The D.C. voucher program uses taxpayer funds to pay for parents to send their children to private religious schools. The program is called the “D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program,” but a 2007 government report found that these vouchers do not give D.C. students seeking a private school education sufficient secular choices, forcing them to attend religious schools or remain in the failing public school system.


By design, voucher programs aid struggling Christian schools. A July 2009 report by Rutgers University on the D.C. voucher program concluded that the way the voucher program is structured “essentially push[es] students into Christian Association and Catholic schools, pricing out independent (non-religious) schools and Hebrew schools.”

By continuing this program, those of us who do not wish to subsidize someone else's church will continue to be forced to do so through our federal tax dollars.

The vote will occur sometime today. Please take five minutes and email your Senators below and tell them to vote against this amendment that would re-authorize this program.


The Secular Coalition for America opposes the use of government funds for religious purposes, including vouchers for religious schools. We agree with the founders of the United States that no individual taxpayer should be required to pay for someone else's religion. We agree with James Madison. Senator Lieberman wants us to go in a different direction.

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship, with your tax money, funds and enables proselytizing and religious discrimination. Recipients of the vouchers who attend religious schools are not even allowed to opt out of religious activities at their school—a direct affront to religious freedom.

It is critical that you write your Senators today and ask them to oppose Sen. Lieberman’s amendment that would re-authorize this program and spend your taxes to fund the religious education of children in D.C.

Go to Secular Coalition for America to send a letter today.

Don't Assume I'm A Sensitive Soul

I received this email from a woman the other day. After careful thought I replied to it and decided it was worth sharing.

Here is the email in its entirety:

Thank you for sharing “Wild Geese”. After Joe Biden used most of this poem as his reflection upon the anniversary of 9/11, I went in search of the poem. The two of Mary Oliver’s collections I own did not include it. I was happy to find it at your site and amazed, actually. Amazed and delighted, because a poem I find so “religious” is at the same time such a balm for you. I grew up Roman Catholic; I am now an Episcopal priest. I am convinced after 20 years that what most people throw away – the cats they heave – are indeed worth heaving. Sometimes we have to go deeper, below the interpretations of history, to find our own deeper truth.

Yes, a “barbarous” God exists in the pages of the Bible: What all-kind God and Father would will the death of a Beloved Son? How could God command Abraham to kill his son Isaac as a test of faith? Isn’t that sadistic? Yes, indeed. On the face of it. For us in the 21st century these stories are barbaric. They are foreign to our experience. They were not foreign to the persons for whom they were written when the “first fruits” in ancient societies were offered up to the deity – including in some cases, the first born child. In some places in later writings there seems to be a critique of these practices in the Bible itself. The question becomes, it seems to me, is it worth reinterpreting these stories for our own time, or do we jettison them and replace them with our own stories of sacrificial obedience and love? Yes, life does involve sacrifice – we give up our children constantly to the gods of war who exact a savage price. There are no rams in the thicket to take their place …

But the same source of barbarism comments on itself in texts of amazing love and mercy. We cannot hear these texts enough.

A Rational Chain E-mail

My friend Charles composed the following email as a response to a ridiculous christian forward he got call "Untimely Deaths". He thought I might like to share it with you. So here it is, including the angry christian email reply he already got and his reply to that at the end. His version had the classical large fonts, underlines and bold text that inflammatory emails often have, but for the web, I had to strip most of the formatting. If you decide to send this on to your christian friends, feel free to make them more at ease by using insanely large font sizes, underlines, unreadable colors, etc. :P

Do you have the COURAGE to Read this whole E-Mail?????

The TRUTH about UNTIMELY DEATHS!

John Lennon (Singer):
Some years before, during an interview with an American Magazine, he said:
"Christianity will end, it will disappear. I do not have to argue about that. I am certain. Jesus was ok, but his subjects were too simple. Today we are
more famous than Him" (1966).
Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, was shot six times.

Is god lazy? Lennon said he was bigger than Jesus in 1966. Mark Chapman shot him in 1980.
Fourteen years later! Was god too busy all those years assassinating other sinners? Is he a procrastinator?
"Oh yeah, that one blasphemous beatle. I really should smite him."
The next day:
"Crap! I forgot! again!"

And so on, for the next fourteen years!

Let's Pick Out The Lies - Part 2

This is part two of a forwarded email I received the other day. Part One is here.

The rest of this email was all added on sometime in 2006. It was NOT said by Ben Stein. This kind of stuff drives me crazy. People forward emails because they blindly believe what is being sent. They just accept that it's all true and important, so they send it to me, and you, whether we like it or not. I really can't stand spam when it comes from someone I know.

Anyhoo, the following is a combination of older items about a TV appearance of Anne Graham Lotz (Billy Graham's daughter) made just after 9-11 and the false claim that child care expert Dr. Benjamin Spock's son committed suicide.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different:  This is not intended to be a joke;  it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Talking about an invisible man in the sky does not really require thinking. It is blindly believing in fairy tales, but I digress.

Let's Pick Out the Lies- Part 1

Personally I don't like to talk to friends and family about politics or religion. The older I get the more strongly I feel about certain issues. While I try to remain open to more information, and am willing to learn and grow and change my thinking, my tolerance for certain behaviors in those around me wanes.

Anyway, the other day I got an email from an acquaintance. She hasn't emailed me in about 2 years, but I guess this was so important to her that she just had to send it to her entire email list. Instead of deleting it, I thought I'd share it with you.

Here's the email in its entirety, with my commentary thrown in after each "quote".

Subject: is quite impressive , what do you think
Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning (everyone should read!)
I can only hope we find God again before it is too late!!

(oh lordy I'm so glad I got this email! Now I can see the light of god and I'm saved from hell! Oh wait, no. It was just a seizure.)