"Judeo-Christian" and Logical Fallacies
As I have mentioned earlier, I don't believe Jews should support "Judeo-Christian values," because the term is purposefully misleading. Upon finishing up my first post, I found Dennis Prager's "What does 'Judeo-Christian' mean?" on Townhall.com (dated March 30, 2004). The full article can be found here.
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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Writing Center has a wonderfully informative page about fallacies of logic and argument (http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/fallacies.html). In this piece, I will find examples of such fallacies from Dennis Prager's column in support of what he calls "Judeo-Christian values."
______________
Hasty Generalization
"Nothing 'Judeo' ever sanctioned pacifism."
When a person uses the extreme word "nothing," even one piece of contrary evidence is sufficient to destroy a claim. Here's one: "Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel said: On three things the world is sustained: on truth, on judgment, and on peace, as it is it says (Zechariah 8:16): 'Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace' " (Pirkei Avos 1:18). (http://www.shechem.org/torah/avot.html)
But in case you want another, in the Torah (Dvarim 20:10), we are told that offering peace before engaging in an offensive attack is righteous.
Post hoc
The very premise of an argument that because "American was founded on Christian morals" (which some may argue) it has prospered economically and politically is flawed. Cause-and-effect relationships are dangerously easy to misinterpret.
"But what does 'Judeo-Christian' mean? We need to know. Along with the belief in liberty -- as opposed to, for example, the European belief in equality, the Muslim belief in theocracy, and the Eastern belief in social conformity -- Judeo-Christian values are what distinguish America from all other countries. That is why American coins feature these two messages: 'In God we trust' and 'Liberty.' "
The existence of those phrases does not prove that America is a Judeo-Christian nation. It could just as easily prove that America was founded on Deist and Enlightenment principles (which, if you read Montesquieu, Rousseau, etc., you will find is true). Neither Prager's argument nor mine is substantiated by believable cause-and-effect relationships, so both would be examples of "post hoc."
Slippery Slope
If we begin to secularize Christmas, a sign that we are losing our values, our country goes down the drain. Prager brilliantly combines this point with "hasty generalization": "Yet, for all its importance and its repeated mention, the term ["Judeo-Christian"] is not widely understood. It urgently needs to be because it is under ferocious assault, and if we do not understand it, we will be unable to defend it. And if we cannot defend it, America will become as amoral as France, Germany, Russia, et al." So, Prager effectively shows how not being able to define a term leads to sodomy, or whatever it is that those 3 countries are currently doing.
Appeal to Authority
Just because the Ivy League schools seem to demonstrate some historic trend, it must be accurate and worthwhile for today. "Yale, founded in 1701, adopted a Hebrew insignia, and Hebrew was compulsory at Harvard until 1787."
Ad populum/Bandwagon
"This sense of mission is why more Americans have died for the liberty of others than any other nation's soldiers." Because lots of Americans valued "liberty," we should value liberty today. I'm not saying I disagree, but I am saying that this is a logical fallacy.
Appeal to Pity
See above example.
False dichotomy
According to Prager, two philosophical extremes exist in America: Judeo-Christian values and complete subservience. "It [Judeo-Christian] is a belief that America must answer morally to this God, not to the mortal, usually venal, governments of the world." Believe it or not, Hindus live in this country, don't believe in the Judeo-Christian God, and yet, many don't support "[answering] to the mortal, usually venal, governments of the world."
Begging the Question
Let's suppose Prager convinced us of the true meaning of "Judeo-Christian." His column still begs the question, "What does making Christmas a national holiday have to do with Judeo-Christian values?": "And that is why those who want Judeo-Christian values to disappear from American public life affirm multiculturalism, seek to remove mention of God from all public life, and make Christmas a private, not a national, holiday."
Please point to "Old Testament" teachings (and by the way, Jews should never call this the "Old Testament" because it suggests that the "New Testament" or the "Brit haChadasha" has replaced our sacred text and our own Covenant, or brit, with Hashem) that would indicate the U.S. government should mandate that Christmas is now a national holiday.
Finally, my personal favorite statement in the column, and an example of an appeal to emotion:
"The battle over whether America remains Judeo-Christian or becomes secular like Europe is what this, the Second American Civil War, is about."
He should have pointed out how liberals are destroying the unity of the American people more than the terrorists did on 9/11... Comparing "Judeo-Christian values" supporters with the North and secularists with the South is accomplishing two goals: (1) Demonize secularists by conjuring up images of slavery and (2) communicate that Judeo-Christian people have an urgent and moral obligation to fight the rest of us.
Don't click on the ads or Ann Coulter will make .000000001 cents.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Writing Center has a wonderfully informative page about fallacies of logic and argument (http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/fallacies.html). In this piece, I will find examples of such fallacies from Dennis Prager's column in support of what he calls "Judeo-Christian values."
______________
Hasty Generalization
"Nothing 'Judeo' ever sanctioned pacifism."
When a person uses the extreme word "nothing," even one piece of contrary evidence is sufficient to destroy a claim. Here's one: "Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel said: On three things the world is sustained: on truth, on judgment, and on peace, as it is it says (Zechariah 8:16): 'Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace' " (Pirkei Avos 1:18). (http://www.shechem.org/torah/avot.html)
But in case you want another, in the Torah (Dvarim 20:10), we are told that offering peace before engaging in an offensive attack is righteous.
Post hoc
The very premise of an argument that because "American was founded on Christian morals" (which some may argue) it has prospered economically and politically is flawed. Cause-and-effect relationships are dangerously easy to misinterpret.
"But what does 'Judeo-Christian' mean? We need to know. Along with the belief in liberty -- as opposed to, for example, the European belief in equality, the Muslim belief in theocracy, and the Eastern belief in social conformity -- Judeo-Christian values are what distinguish America from all other countries. That is why American coins feature these two messages: 'In God we trust' and 'Liberty.' "
The existence of those phrases does not prove that America is a Judeo-Christian nation. It could just as easily prove that America was founded on Deist and Enlightenment principles (which, if you read Montesquieu, Rousseau, etc., you will find is true). Neither Prager's argument nor mine is substantiated by believable cause-and-effect relationships, so both would be examples of "post hoc."
Slippery Slope
If we begin to secularize Christmas, a sign that we are losing our values, our country goes down the drain. Prager brilliantly combines this point with "hasty generalization": "Yet, for all its importance and its repeated mention, the term ["Judeo-Christian"] is not widely understood. It urgently needs to be because it is under ferocious assault, and if we do not understand it, we will be unable to defend it. And if we cannot defend it, America will become as amoral as France, Germany, Russia, et al." So, Prager effectively shows how not being able to define a term leads to sodomy, or whatever it is that those 3 countries are currently doing.
Appeal to Authority
Just because the Ivy League schools seem to demonstrate some historic trend, it must be accurate and worthwhile for today. "Yale, founded in 1701, adopted a Hebrew insignia, and Hebrew was compulsory at Harvard until 1787."
Ad populum/Bandwagon
"This sense of mission is why more Americans have died for the liberty of others than any other nation's soldiers." Because lots of Americans valued "liberty," we should value liberty today. I'm not saying I disagree, but I am saying that this is a logical fallacy.
Appeal to Pity
See above example.
False dichotomy
According to Prager, two philosophical extremes exist in America: Judeo-Christian values and complete subservience. "It [Judeo-Christian] is a belief that America must answer morally to this God, not to the mortal, usually venal, governments of the world." Believe it or not, Hindus live in this country, don't believe in the Judeo-Christian God, and yet, many don't support "[answering] to the mortal, usually venal, governments of the world."
Begging the Question
Let's suppose Prager convinced us of the true meaning of "Judeo-Christian." His column still begs the question, "What does making Christmas a national holiday have to do with Judeo-Christian values?": "And that is why those who want Judeo-Christian values to disappear from American public life affirm multiculturalism, seek to remove mention of God from all public life, and make Christmas a private, not a national, holiday."
Please point to "Old Testament" teachings (and by the way, Jews should never call this the "Old Testament" because it suggests that the "New Testament" or the "Brit haChadasha" has replaced our sacred text and our own Covenant, or brit, with Hashem) that would indicate the U.S. government should mandate that Christmas is now a national holiday.
Finally, my personal favorite statement in the column, and an example of an appeal to emotion:
"The battle over whether America remains Judeo-Christian or becomes secular like Europe is what this, the Second American Civil War, is about."
He should have pointed out how liberals are destroying the unity of the American people more than the terrorists did on 9/11... Comparing "Judeo-Christian values" supporters with the North and secularists with the South is accomplishing two goals: (1) Demonize secularists by conjuring up images of slavery and (2) communicate that Judeo-Christian people have an urgent and moral obligation to fight the rest of us.
posted by I, the Progressive Jew at
9:01 PM
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