Poor Logic

lol, okay..  Well let me help these guys out here.  Although this is clearly meant to be a deductive argument (with the implied conclusion that "all atheism leads to civil war"), it is highly fallacious.  It's sad to me that people actually find this rhetoric compelling.  And for the sake of entertainment and an unnecessary exercise in logic, I will break this argument down into parts and over-analyze the crap out of it.  This way I can render it even more absurd than it already is, and ultimately feel better about myself for being an asshole (kind of like these assholes).  ;)  



By the way, no atheist is really "anti-god" in the way this sign implies, atheism is simply disbelief in the supernatural altogether.  Many radicals who use the term anti-god to describe atheism, assume atheists do believe god exists, and that we intentionally defy him/her/it by not conforming with the rest of the sheeple on this planet.  Atheists don't believe in god, so we cannot be "anti-god" in that way.  Many radicals just assume it is impossible to not believe in god, and that atheists are stubbornly defying him by pretending not to believe (or that we're in denial or something).  We can be "anti-religious," and against a particular conception of god, but most atheists simply decline to participate in the debate.  However, because they mentioned atheists and their lawyers, they may be referring to secularism and how people want religion our of our schools, and out of political decisions that affect everyone.  But this isn't anti-god, this is secularism.  You want religion to be allowed in school or politics?  Which religion?  Yours?  Well how convenient.    

Substituting "atheist" for "anti-god," because this sign was clearly meant to address "lunatic atheists & their lawyers," the argument runs thus:

Origionally their argument looks like this:
a is b
b is t
t is c...? (I think it is meant for us to draw our own conclusions here, wink)

making it valid:
a is b
b is t
t is c
thus a is c (thus all people anti-god lead to civil war..)

More realistically, their claims are universal generalizations that ALL anti-god/atheism is anti-american.  Syllogistically:

1:  (all A is B) all atheists are anti-american
2:  (all B is T) all anti-american(ism) is treason
3:  (Thus all A is T)  Thus all atheists are traitors
4:  (all T is C) all traitors lead to civil war
5:  (Thus all A's are C)  Therefore all atheism leads to civil war

However, this is like saying:


All organisms with wings can fly.
Penguins have wings.
Therefore, penguins can fly*


or


Cutting people with a knife is a crime
Surgeons cut people with a knife
Surgeons are criminals* 


Just because an argument is valid does not make it sound.  This argument fails at the first premise right out the gate, because for any premise to follow, it must be universally true for all atheists, which it obviously is not.  Premise one is a fallacy of presumption, normally referred to as the "fallacy of accident" or destroying the exception.  It assumes that all atheists (or secularists for that matter) are necessarily anti-american.  A blatantly false statement.  There are atheists serving our country right now.  Some atheists are very patriotic, and serve all areas of employment in our nation's government and education system.  They pay taxes, vote, etc.  I served in the Navy for five years, and I don't regret it.

Premise 2 is laughable, but could be allowed as a definition I suppose.  However, what does "anti-american" mean?  Against policy?  Critical of our country's past and present decisions?  There are lots of anti-american citizens out there.  Sometimes not everyone supports our current political direction, or our past political decisions.  Most of us were born here without any choice in the matter, so..  yeah, why couldn't one be anti-american?  Does it really constitute treason? Premise 3 is entailed by premise one and two, and it highlights how absurd premise one actually is.  I mean if all people who wanted secular government were traitors, you would have to toss in almost all of our founding fathers under that assumption.  Premise 4 also needs to be universally true for the conclusion to follow.   Do all traitors lead to civil war?  Of course not.  Some are caught and brought to justice when they've harmed our citizens and country.  So this statement is also unsound.

Premise 5...  All Atheism (or secularism) leads to civil war?  You have got to be kidding me.        

Well, two can play at this game:

(All R is D)  All religion distorts the truth
(x is R)        Christianity is a religion
(x is D)        Therefore Christianity distorts the truth
(All D is H)  Whatever distorts the truth harms the people
(x is H)        Thus, Christianity harms the people
(All H is W) All that harms people is morally wrong
(x is W)       Thus Christianity is morally wrong

Perfectly valid, but is it sound?




 * these are taken from the two links in the following paragraph.