My problem with our critics is when they try to blame the whole Church because of the actions of a few. This kind of reasoning is what is called a logical fallacy. A website devoted to the discussion of logical fallacies explains them in this manner:
The ability to identify logical fallacies in the arguments of others, and to avoid them in one’s own arguments, is both valuable and increasingly rare. Fallacious reasoning keeps us from knowing the truth, and the inability to think critically makes us vulnerable to manipulation by those skilled in the art of rhetoric.
A logical fallacy is, roughly speaking, an error of reasoning. When someone adopts a position, or tries to persuade someone else to adopt a position, based on a bad piece of reasoning, they commit a fallacy.
I can identify at least four errors in reasoning that our enemies use in regards to the Mountain Meadows Massacre. There are probably many more, but this should be sufficient to show the flawed thinking that they employ.
- Correlation Does Not Mean Causation is one of the errors in reasoning mentioned above. Just because all of the conspirators were Latter-day Saints does not mean that being a Latter-day Saint caused this behavior.
- Fallacy of a Single Cause occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause when in reality it may have been caused by a number of things.
- A third logical fallacy used by our enemies in blaming the Church for this tragedy is called the Historian's Fallacy. This occurs when one assumes that decision makers in the past viewed events with the same perspective and information as us in the present.
- Mostly this reasoning is a Fallacy of Composition. This arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true for part. Since some members of the Church did this horrible crime, then the whole Church is smeared by it.
If we discover that the leaders of the Church (Brigham Young et al.) were involved then that would dispute my logical fallacy argument. We will address in our next post the historical facts of whether Brigham or other high ranking leaders were involved, or endorsed the actions at Mountain Meadows.
i knew the fallacy theory was on its way. is it possible that these individuals retaliated for what happened to smith. old school eye for an eye? maybe the church was somehow responsible? it seems you are trying to disprove that there was culpabilty by the higher ups. the fallacy logic may work to disprove, but how do you know one way or another? plenty of other religions have killed and i would imagine they blamed it on the other guy. maybe the massacre was like a lot of them. chaotic and wrong in retrospect.
ReplyDeletei'm convinced or i need more persuasion is an example of biased reasoning. if it were a true fact finding mission, the box would read guilty or innocent of complicity. don't know the answer but this does not seem fair and balanced.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking that you didn't read the last sentence which reads "We will address in our next post the historical facts of whether Brigham or other high ranking leaders were involved, or endorsed the actions at Mountain Meadows.". We will get to that next.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the line about "i knew the fallacy theory was on its way" is an example of a different logical fallacy known as a "red herring". Bad reasoning is so common that most people don't even notice it anymore. My favorite line in the whole post was the definition of a logical fallacy when someone else wrote "Fallacious reasoning keeps us from knowing the truth, and the inability to think critically makes us vulnerable to manipulation by those skilled in the art of rhetoric." It is so true.