Joe Carter @the evangelical outpost often posts a paragraph illuminating one of the logical fallacies. I really like that service. Today it was:
#113 Know Your Fallacies — Argumentum ad consequentiam – The author points to the disagreeable consequences of holding a particular belief in order to show that this belief is false.
The reason to post on it is that I was thinking, isn’t this exactly what we see in many of the arguments why to say or do (or not) in examining Muslim actions and views in this terrorist war? Aren’t we warned that we shouldn’t say this or that because it will make the Muslims angry?
I can understand respectfulness. I can understand the need to avoid inflammatory rhetoric. But I don’t understand the deliberate obfuscation of the truth.
If the problems we are seeing are rooted within Islam, then we must face that. If the Muslim world will not let go of their jihadist extremism and continue to support goals of domination through force, then we better look at that squarely.
Of course, then we have to formulate policy in line with that. And that would be the difficult part.
I think lots of us are in a holding pattern waiting to see what the Muslim world will do in the aftermath of the London bombings. While others are tired of the whole scene and just want to shift their attention elsewhere.
That’s ok. The problem isn’t going away anytime soon. It will be waiting for us to deal with it sooner or later. I just wish we had some real policy and direction in place…..