The God Con
  • The God Con
  • About
  • Purchase Book/Contact the Author
  • Index

​
​The God Con
Pay
Pray Obey​

Certainly not The Good Book,
But perhaps a good book.
Picture

​Labels and Language

18/9/2017

0 Comments

 
“Language can bewitch us. If a word exists, we tend to assume that there must be something in reality to which it refers. Labels are meant to be slapped onto things, right?”

This quote comes from a recent article in the Skeptical Inquirer (September 2017) by Maarten Boudry about logical fallacies:

I discuss both logical fallacies and language in my book The God Con.

Organized religion uses this human predilection with respect to labels all the time. Priests, flocks, saints, sinners, redemption, heaven, hell, judgment day, communion, etc all refer to stuff the churches simply made up. But the labels they receive beguile their concocted-for-a-reason purpose. That reason is to deceive.

Boudry makes some excellent observations about logical fallacies and the skeptic’s knee jerk reaction upon detecting them. He suggests, correctly, that many “real” logical fallacies are either very rare in the real world, or they tell us very little. There are literally hundreds of such fallacies, but I only discuss the ones I see popping up regularly cocktail party discussions, such as the argument from ignorance (this is the “you don’t know it isn’t true” argument).

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Lee Moller is a life-long skeptic and atheist and the author of The God Con.

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017

    Categories

    All
    Books
    Comment
    Critical Thinking And Skepticism
    Donald Trump
    Quotes
    RCC
    Reviews
    Science
    The God Con

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • The God Con
  • About
  • Purchase Book/Contact the Author
  • Index