Columnist's argument illogical

Nathan Carleton’s latest column reads like a poor man’s Monday, Monday: though marginally more amusing, it is significantly more intellectually offensive. A full account of the logical errors and fallacies that riddle his column is beyond the scope of this letter, but I will attempt to highlight the more salient points.

I will start with Carleton’s rhetorical question: “What kind of people risk scorn, suffering and death to trick future generations into believing a false ideology, especially when they have nothing to gain financially?” History shows that most proponents of false ideologies do. By his “logic,” al Qaeda, and other radical Islamic fundamentalist groups are either correct, or at the very least primarily committed to financial gain. Charles Mansons are common in our history: delusion and charisma often go hand in hand.

More broadly, Carleton’s argument is so general as to “logically” demonstrate the validity of all organized religions’ and sects’ belief, in spite of logical contradictions. This is primarily because of some basic assumptions that are clearly false. First, he says that the Bible must either be “the word of God” or “propaganda.” His first logical assumption, then, is that the Truth was revealed to early proponents of Christianity, and that they then consciously decided either to spread or conceal that Truth. He makes no allowance for error. I think few argue that all Christians are liars: most atheists, such as myself, just think they’re wrong. The next assumption is that existence implies correctness: the fact that James says that “Jesus was called the Christ” in no way implies that James knew that Jesus was the Christ. When I say that women in Salem were called witches, it does not mean that I know that these women had supernatural powers.

Finally, there are two arguments proposed in this article that are so bizarre that I do not know how to go about refuting them. First, Carleton states that Tacitus described Nero’s persecution of Christians in 115 A.D. Does this mean that all persecuted peoples believe in the true faith? It would then seem clear that, because of the Spanish Civil War, Judaism and Islam are both correct (and therefore equivalent), and that Christianity is incorrect. Moreover, Carleton argues that the inclusion of “paradoxical aspects of Christianity” is a sign of its truth. I fear a world in which logical inconsistency points to the truth.

This is, perhaps, where Carleton and I diverge: I believe that logical statements should be logically coherent.

David Rademeyer

Trinity ’08