Logical? Maybe Not. Educational? You Bet!

OK, I confess. The whole Death Penalty Logic post was a hose, aimed primarily at my friend (maybe my ex-friend, after this admission) PhillyChief, who had been blowing loud and hard about his superior logical ability in death penalty debates. Unfortunately, he bowed out early at No More Hornets. He has now rejoined the fray over at You Made Me Say It, though. If he wants to continue, I’ll joust with him there – because I think his “demonstration” of the flaws in my argument is itself extremely flawed. I did love the graphic, though. Anyway, I recommend that you head over there and judge his logic for yourself.

You might also want to take a look at Barefoot Bum's devastating commentary on my "astoundingly bad argument." (I'm not exactly sure what criterion he uses to distinguish between an argument that's just garden-variety bad and one that's astoundingly bad, but his premise seems correct.)

The truth is: The long-winded argument in my post was cobbled together in about as long as it took to type it. I actually have no idea if it’s logically sound or not, but I can’t imagine how it could be. I’m pretty good with slinging words, though, and I was aware of some “tricks.” Many other seemingly planned authorial manipulations, like that sophomoric affirming the consequent, were just fuck-ups on my part.

There was one other person in the Atheosphere who knew I was going to do this before I’d actually done it, but that person bears no responsibility for anything in the post — or even for the fact that it became a post. I’ll amend this paragraph to give that person a link if he or she (seriously, I can’t decide) wants his or her (still can’t) identity known. I also briefly told my wife what I planned to do, but she never listens to me anyway (could you blame her?), and wouldn’t have cared even if she had listened.

I don’t know shit about formal logic much beyond what I learned in 1966 in my Freshman Course in the Symbolic Logic of Lewis Carroll. In that course, we proved all kinds of important stuff on the level of “a dormouse who dunks crumpets in his tea will never amount to anything.” (My memory isn’t what it once was, but I could probably still derive that if I could duplicate the set of premises.) I also own a book called Thinking From A to Z, but I usually get to more than one Z just a few minutes after opening it. I think I've actually read as far as D-and-a-half.

Interestingly, some atheists and theists alike showed that their primary method of fighting faulty logic is to yell “bullshit,” make ad hominem wisecracks, and resort to other forms of semantic thuggery. I’ve been guilty, myself, of using that technique. Hundreds of times. It’s fun. And it gets your rocks off. And you feel so self-righteous when you’re done. But it doesn’t win debates against someone who refuses to get rattled. Very early in the thread, commenter yunshui noticed that.

Finally, John Morales (who, alas, has no blog to link to) stepped into the arena with some real skill at deflating a logical argument just by using the tools of logic. I’m not certain what his plan was, but I think he hoped to give me just enough rope to slowly hang myself with my tendentious definitions and unsupportable premises. I’m going to assume that was it; he’ll have to demonstrate to me formally that my assumption is incorrect. (Note to JM: I’d still love to see how you skewer me, so let’s continue over there — or here, if you’d like. I’ll pretend I never wrote this, and defend my argument against you as best I can. I wasn’t kidding about how much I was learning from watching you build up a solid case, even though I have no idea yet what that case is.)

There's a blatant lesson in the comment thread. In future, I think all of us atheists should refrain, when “debating” with theists of the pseudo-logical variety, from immediately reaching for “this sucks” or “you’re a moron.” That goes for me, too. When we do that, we heat up the interchange without accomplishing anything. Now, obviously, there are plenty of morons out there, making sucky arguments, who can’t respond to anything other than insults. If you find one like that, and you’ve lost your patience, knock yourself out. But do try to be witty about it for the entertainment of the rest of us. Saying “your ideas are fucked-up” is so dull.

As far as the death penalty, I am adamantly against it. But I don’t think either side can get anywhere in expressing its position by going through the rigmarole of a silly logical puzzle. The best way to exchange views on that issue is probably to have just a regular old-fashioned discussion, featuring, on both sides, some logic, some emotions, some references to authority, gut feelings, preconceptions, etc. — as if we’re normal people (not bloggers) having a conversation, instead of engaging in a debate or a formalized exercise.

If anyone gets angry enough to murder me for my little hoax, know that my friends and relatives will do everything in their power to make sure you’re executed. I won't approve, but I'll be dead.