Rome Sentinel Masthead
Frank, a Christian in Rome New York, wrote the following letter to his local newspaper, The Rome Sentinel:
The “state,” like an individual, is never without religion. Even if people choose to have nothing to do with God, they still have religion. It is called Humanistic/Atheism. Our government’s actions in removing God from our public institutions and school system are not separation of church and state. It is a state-sponsored choice of removing our Christian religion and heritage and replacing it with Humanistic/Atheism.
It is making “self” the new God and moral relativism the new standards of right and wrong. “Darwinism” is its main teaching and the unborn have no value as they interfere with the rights of “self.” It is no different than Communist Russia and Nazi Germany. This is not the religion our Founding Fathers based our country upon nor was it the religion our Christian children died fighting wars to protect.
In embracing its new religion, our government, like an individual, has chosen to exist without God or his principles. In doing so, the seeds of corruption are beginning to appear throughout all levels of our society. Our nation’s institutions are falling apart and our economy is imploding. Is it no wonder?
Let’s play a game called Find the Fallacies with Frank’s letter. I counted at least 12 of them. Discuss your answers in the comments section.
– the chaplain
Posted by arensb on December 21, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I’m probably missing a lot in that thicket of stupid, but it mostly looks like a lot of non sequiturs and unsupported assertions. There’s an argumentum ad Hitlerum, though, and I think I see an enthymeme with the unstated assumption that “Darwinists want to kill babies”.
Posted by PhillyChief on December 21, 2008 at 12:19 pm
1) The state is REQUIRED to be without religion
His “Darwinism” is actually “social Darwinism”, which is an attempt to use evolution to justify supremacy claims, notably racially inspired ones which grew out of and were strongly reinforced by British Imperialism.
2) An individual can be without religion quite easily
3) Atheism isn’t a religion
4) Removing affirmations for a god are not endorsements of atheism
5) Removing Christian taint from government in no way suggests removing Christianity from personal lives.
6) There’s no “new god”. Do you replace a rat in your house with a new rat?
7) Darwinism is not a teaching of Humanism, and there’s no teaching for atheism.
9) Rights are for sentient beings.
10) Communist Russia and Nazi Germany never embraced your claims.
10a) Neither adopted moral relativism, they dictated what was moral, like religions
10b) Nazis embraced abortion insofar as to effectively sterilize non-Aryans, not as a favoring of self over unborn
10c) Stalin prohibited abortions.
11) The Founding Fathers didn’t base the US on a religion
12) Non-Christians died fighting wars to protect America as well. Try visiting the gravestones at Arlington.
13) Corruption is nothing new, ESPECIALLY in government. Our Founders in fact counted on it, which is why we have three separate branches of government, to harness corruption and self interest to use against itself to keep it in check.
14) Many of our nation’s institutions have become disreputable due to religious belief, either dictated by it or exploiting it to advance party policies.
15) Our economy is imploding largely due to faith, faith that if unchecked, people will do the right thing. Faith is folly and leads to ruin.
Posted by PhillyChief on December 21, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Stupid emoticons! That was supposed to be 8!
Posted by Ric on December 21, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Let us praise Frank for being moderately literate and grammatical, as opposed to most of the religious troglodytes.
But he’s still stupid and ignorant and a danger to enlightened democracy. (Oh oh, did I just do an ad hominem fallacy? Oh goodness me.)
Posted by revright on December 21, 2008 at 2:00 pm
A minor grammatical point, but it’s either “Humanism/Atheism” or “Humanistic Atheism.” “Humanistic/Atheism” makes no sense.
Posted by the chaplain on December 21, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Hey, you guys are pretty good!
Arensb: Thanks for joining the fun. I hope to see you around here more often.
Philly: So far, it looks like you’ll win the prize. Now, I’ve got to figure out what the prize will be.
Ric: The day you don’t commit an ad hominem will surely be the end of the world.
Revright: That grammatical point jumps right off the screen doesn’t it? I wonder how Frank didn’t catch himself on that one.
Posted by John Pieret on December 21, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Funny how Darwin wasn’t a “Darwinist,” isn’t it?
Posted by the chaplain on December 21, 2008 at 5:34 pm
John:
It’s unfortunate that Darwin has been maligned so viciously by those who either don’t understand his ideas or prefer to cling to their silly superstitions.
Posted by DB on December 21, 2008 at 7:10 pm
This guy is a clown. Who writes to the [unknown] local newspaper thinking you have something profound to add to the conversation that hasn’t been said already? Though, we must be thankful the other side is made up of clowns like this. He represents typical conservative activism that succeeds only in epic fails. Sit at home on your ass, write a letter to the local paper and think you are helping the movement, whatever that may be. (Granted his bigot friends make much more headway in their megachurches).
Posted by PhillyChief on December 22, 2008 at 12:34 am
What local newspaper reads this and thinks, “hey, we oughta print this”? Some clown sitting somewhere tippety-tapping this shit on his keyboard is one thing. A paper printing it is another. Yikes!
Posted by arensb on December 22, 2008 at 12:47 am
PhillyChief:
Maybe I was just being pedantic, but I wasn’t counting just plain wrong statements as fallacies. Things like “The state is never without religion” is plainly and stupidly wrong, but it’s not a fallacy. “Our government has abandoned God and his principles, and therefore corruption is appearing”, OTOH, is an argument from adverse consequences, which is a fallacy.
I guess the basic problem with this letter is that it asserts a whole lot of things, almost all of them wrong, and never really makes an argument.
As for your rat analogy: my favorite response to “If you get rid of religion, what will you put in its place?” is “If you’re cured of tuberculosis, what will you replace it with?”
Revright:
Yeah, I noticed that too.
Posted by Alan on December 22, 2008 at 5:22 pm
“What local newspaper reads this and thinks, “hey, we oughta print this”? Some clown sitting somewhere tippety-tapping this shit on his keyboard is one thing. A paper printing it is another. Yikes!”
A Christian one.
Posted by Maria on December 22, 2008 at 9:41 pm
My favorite is the guy’s characterization of Nazi Germany and the USSR as overemphasizing “the ’self’”, complete with scare quotes. That sure is some great historical revision there–the Nazis rose to power and took over their country, and killed twelve million people in labor camps, all because they spent too much effort promoting individual rights.
Posted by the chaplain on December 22, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Arensb: TB as an analogy for religion – I like it.
Alan’s answer to Philly’s question was, “A Christian one.” Good answer. Too bad I’m all out of gold stars.
Maria: The Nazis and Soviets were all about individualism. That’s why they had uniforms for the Nazis and collectives for the Soviets.
Posted by Ric on December 23, 2008 at 6:39 pm
“Ric: The day you don’t commit an ad hominem will surely be the end of the world.”
Once you ad hominemize you’ll never defallacize.
Even the milk I buy at the store is hominemized. To hell with the milk of human kindness crap.
Posted by OneSmallStep on December 24, 2008 at 1:09 pm
**It is making “self” the new God and moral relativism the new standards of right and wrong. **
This is a concept that has always confused me — the idea that if someone “removes” God from the public square or private life, then that person’s self has just become the new God.
Yet, Christianity would define God as omnipotent and omniscient, and all that. So is the Christian then saying that the atheist feels him/herself to be omnipotent? Or that people are omnipotent? How exactly are they qualifying “God” in that context?
Posted by the chaplain on December 24, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Ric – I didn’t know you were an addict. Does that milk cost anything extra or do you get a discount?
OneSmallStep – That “self becomes one’s god” line may be the lamest of many lame ideas Christians toss out to keep the sheep in line. As you pointed out, it makes absolutely no sense.
Posted by Ric on December 24, 2008 at 8:06 pm
“I didn’t know you were an addict”
That’s a fallacy. I can dehominemize anytime I want to.