Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (1 Cor. 1:25)

Blogged Logic

December 09th, 2005

Affirmations and Denials

Posted At: 11:38am by Rev. William M. Cwirla

We haven’t had a Logical Fallacies Friday in a long time, due mostly to distractions. Here’s a fun one with a twist at the end: Affirming the Consequent. This one runs a little long, but stay with it. You won’t be sorry.

Affirming the Consequent is the logical equivalent of throwing your car’s stick shift into reverse while going forward [ read more ]

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November 11th, 2005

Irrelevent Humor

Posted At: 3:40pm by Rev. William M. Cwirla

Here’s a personal favorite from the logical fallacies list: Irrelevent Humor.

Nothing breaks up a difficult moment like a little levity; and nothing derails an argument better than an irreverent irrelevency.

Aristotle once said, “Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest [ read more ]

November 04th, 2005

Guest Professor

Posted At: 11:56am by Rev. William M. Cwirla

I've been having a little too much fun celebrating the Reformation this week, and found myself unprepared for class today. Actually, I had a fallacy piece written, only to discover that the piece itself was fallacious! Happens to the best of us. So I've arranged for a substitute teacher today on Logical Fallacies Friday. (No cutting class! Attendance will be taken!)
[ read more ]

I am reading The Wealth of Nations
Release Date: 04 March, 2003

October 28th, 2005

Slip Sliding Away

Posted At: 12:40am by Rev. William M. Cwirla

“Give him an inch, and he’ll take a mile.” Well, not necessarily. Maybe he’ll just take a foot or two. There’s a big difference between an inch and a mile.

Welcome to the “Slippery Slope” Fallacy. Another name for this fallacy is the [ read more ]

Edited on: November 01st, 2005 10:51 am

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September 30th, 2005

Amphiboly

Posted At: 5:19pm by Rev. William M. Cwirla

I decided we needed a fun fallacy for Logical Fallacies Friday - Amphiboly. I really like the sound of that word. Am-phib-o-ly. It comes from the Greek amphibolia which means something that is indeterminate. It’s a “fallacy of [ read more ]

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September 23rd, 2005

Wanna Bet?

Posted At: 10:10am by Rev. William M. Cwirla

You flip the coin ten times, and ten times in a row it comes up heads. How much do you want to bet that the next time you flip it comes up heads? Or will it be tails? If you are convinced that the next toss has a better than

[ read more ]

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September 16th, 2005

Round and Round We Go

Posted At: 11:33am by Rev. William M. Cwirla

It's another Logical Fallacies Friday here on Blogosphere. You grab the loose basketball at center court. You're spun around by the point guard. You recover your balance and streak down the court, do a 360 windmill slam, toss up your hands in triumph. And then you realize that you threw the ball straight into your own basket. The

[ read more ]

September 02nd, 2005

Coincidence or Cause?

Posted At: 12:35pm by Rev. William M. Cwirla

If it's Friday, there must be a logical fallacy. Do Fridays cause fallacies, or do fallacies cause Fridays? Given the hurricane in the headlines and the inevitable speculations, we're going to talk about two fallacies dealing with cause, correlation, and coincidence: Non Causa Pro Causa (non-cause for a cause) and [ read more ]

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August 26th, 2005

The Straw Man

Posted At: 9:23am by Rev. William M. Cwirla

It's Friday, and that means another logical fallacy here on Blogosphere. Permit me to introduce you to The Straw Man

You've likely already met him, even if you didn't know his name. He hangs out at political campaigns. Talk radio is so full of straw men, you'd think they were broadcasting from a [ read more ]

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August 19th, 2005

Sticks and Stones

Posted At: 10:47am by Rev. William M. Cwirla

It's Logical Fallacies Friday here on Blogosphere. Class is in session. I hope you enjoyed last week's reading assignments; I appreciated all the comments.

The Logical Fallacy for the week is called argumentum ad hominem, or the "argument to the person." Forget the point, go for the person. Irrelevant information. Static. Stink bombs. The stuff of mud slinging [ read more ]

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