Logical fallacies and religions

Today i read a post in facebook that made me angry. I will proceed to copy the text here, so you know what i'm talking about:

"True story.

An atheist was seated next to a little girl on an airplane and he turned to her and said, "Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

The little girl, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total stranger, "What would you want to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the atheist. "How about why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death?" as he smiled smugly.

"Okay," she said. "Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff - grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?"

The atheist, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have no idea." To which the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss God, Heaven and Hell, or life after death, when you don't know shit?"

And then she went back to reading her book."

That's the text. You may consider it a harmless joke, but I find it very annoying.

It reminds me of another text that went around some time ago, where there was an atheist teacher and a student discussing spiritual things, where the student made the teacher sound foolish. At the end, the text claimed this was also a true story, and that the student was Albert Einstein.

Where to begin? I'll start with the logic side.

When argumenting things, you need to use logic if you want to make a good point. I will say that sometimes arguments have convinced people without using logic, but thats because we people are all idiots and easy to manipulate. Lets ignore the idiot factor and agree that you would need logic.

When trying to argument something, you would need then to use arguments that make sense. Eventually, you may realize that in a discussion, there is a core principle, from which all logical arguments are created, that is different in each side of the discussion. With good arguments, you can agree to disagree on the core principle, or correct the other's logical process, in which the core principle is the same but one of the steps was logically incorrect.

Anyway, that's usually too much trouble, so the solution is to center your attention to we the idiotic people. To do so, you can use logical fallacies, things that seem like arguments, but aren't.

The post I copied here uses a very nice logical fallacy, the "strawman". The strawman fallacy consists on creating a character that defends the position contrary to yours. Optionally, you can add other characters with your position. Once you have this, you make this character explain the opposing argument, or defend it in some way.

Once you have done so, you can argue against that argument. Since you control the strawman, you can make him unable to respond, or answer foolishly. If this was a real person, the outcome would probably be different. With the strawman, you can shamefully make them unable to respond.

As an example, let's imagine the same story, with two differences: the man smugly(another trick, to show he's stupid) asks to talk about the one true god that we all should follow and about heaven and hell(let's say christian god). The girl answers in the same way. The man shouts "shut up, heretic!" and detonates a bomb he had strapped on him, blowing up the plane.

You see? All religius people are ignorant (they dont know about shit), smug and condescending (trying to teach a little girl), and violent fanatics (shouting angrily and resorting to bombs). It's very essy to "prove", because they're my characters and I can make them do whatever I want.

Of course, the story I just explained sounds stupid. That was its point. This techniche is widely used by lots of sides in different types of arguments. It provides examples of other point of views wihtout letting them defend themselves or while making them stupid, thus making the wanted point more reasonable to the reader, or listener.

The story with the student used the same fallacy, plus the appeal to authority. This one is also widely used. In the student story, it was claimed that Albert Einstein was that student. This is not even true, but it's irrelevant in this case. Let's cringe in horror and say he did say these things. So what? Albert Einstein was a great physicist, so I would listen to his opinion in physics. I would not care about his opinion in cooking, because he's not remembered as a cook. He is an authority, but an authority in some topic. Appeal to authority tries to prove something by simply saying someone important said it. The missing detail is to say that whoever said it has to be a respected expert on that topic for it to be considered useful. And even so, it's not enough if there's no solid proof behind the comment. I believe it was Aristoteles the one who thought that arrows without a pointy end would move faster. He was a great thinker, and he was very wrong in this.

Summing it up, to properly use an authority they have to be experts in the discussed field and have undisproved research defending that theory. Otherwise its as useful as proudly declaring your 3-year old son agrees with your idea and thinks you're awesome(good for you, but irrelevant in a discussion).

Since we're talking about religion and logic, I'd like to add a few comments about religion itself. As explained in Dogma, I'm fine with people having beliefs, or ideas. I'm less fine with organising such beliefs in a strict ruleset that needs to be obeyed and shared, accompanied by a big organisation with military-like structure to help its diffussion and power-gathering.

Anyway, it's ok to have beliefs, just be smart about them. Don't use fallacies, and use your brain. I'm more familiar with christianism, so I'll use it as an example:

1- Your sacred book is a list of guidelines, of moral and ethical stories, written by several people among the years and, sometimes, edited by people in power who had their own agendas. Don't take it literal, and don't take it as proof of something. Your book was not done when cars existed, and therefore it does not reflect some of the heavy changes society has gone through. Your book was not written by God, it was written by people, and usually religions agree on the fact that people make mistakes. Focus your attention to the morals, not the content. For example, Christ was trying to spread the message of loving each other, and not doing stuff to people that you would not do to yourself, and otherwise. He was also warning about greed, and about the corruption of money and power. Use logic to apply this message, if you want, and try to fit it in your life. You may realize that organized religions may have twisted some of the ideas for their own purposes, in the process...

2- As mentioned, your sacred book is a number of moral tales. Don't assume they happened for real, and concentrate on the meaning. Science will prove again and again that some of the stories do not fit in our world. It will not be an opinion, it will be proof. For example, evolution is not an opinion, it's a fact. To say otherwise is stupid. To let this shatter your believes, right now, is stupid as well (when it was discovered it was more normal that it impacted beliefs). If you really have beliefs, accept that you may not know how "God" created the world, or in which ways it was made to work, and think that science is just discovering these facts. There are lots of things still unclear, more than before, i'd say. If something as simple as evolution makes you doubt, your beliefs were not that strong on the first place...

3- Be tolerant. I don't know about all religions, but in general I believe that the idea behind most of them is to be nice to each other. If someone's actions are not insulting you directly or damaging someone, let them be. I believe most religions say that people not following them will be judged by God and be punished if they deserve it. Therefore, don't presume to know God's will, and let people do whatever they want. If you belief they're wrong, they will be judged anyway, right? If you're trying to "save" them, well, i'd say you may want to try, but you should know when this intromissions are not welcomed, and avoid them. Specially, avoid any intromissions that would start with you being angry. Remember the free will part, everyone should be able to apply it, don't reduce it in others. If someone is sinning in your eyes, that's their problem, not yours.

4- Religions are not (usually) being attacked by non-religious people. As mentioned, discovering how the world works and realising that your sacred books and ideas mention something different should not be considered an attack. People may react badly against religion when religion is telling them what to think and not allowing any flexibility whatsoever. Always remember the catholic church(even if you're not catholic) during the time of Galileo. The church did not like to have proof that earth was not the center of the universe, and denied it and attacked people who defended this idea. Whatever religion or believe you may follow, think if you're doing exactly the same, and try not to. Just use your brain, and adapt the core principles to this new data. What is more important, if humans evolved or not, or if humans should do good or not?

5- If you believe in the fact that there is a perfect being, and that we humans are far from perfect, accept that this can perfectly apply to you and all the people who created and/or are currently part of your religion. Question things if the messages and the actions do not fit, and always use your brain.

Some time ago I read a brutal sentence that sums up the point i'm trying to make. The sentence said more or less the following thing: "Religions are like dicks. You can have one and feel proud of having one, but it's wrong to try to put it in other people without their permission".