If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be the Jews!
That Outfit is Sooooooo Last Year!!
Until very recent, I was labour under the misapprehension that a Syllagism was a dessert with sperm in, but it transpire that, for the first time, I was wrong. Is not a syllagism, but a syllogism, and what it is is a logical argument which is construct in such a way that, if the premises is true, then the consclusion is also true, of necessityness. Thus, as was esplain to me by a boy scout friend, is possible to have an argument which is logically valid but not true, if one of the premises is not true, for esample:
All Mens are Fallible
The Pope is a Man, therefore,
The Pope is Fallible,
which follows logically but is not true because the first premise is false. Not all Men are Fallible. The Pope is a Man and he is not Fallible.
Also, is possible to have an argument in which all the Premises is True, but the argument is not valid, such as:
Real Madrid is play in Madrid
Madrid is in Spain, therefore,
Real Madrid is the best team in the world.
You see, the premises and conclusion is all true, but they are not follow logically from one another, and therefore the argument is not valid.
I was force to reflect on the Syllogism by the big row this week because of the statement by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (of course, the communist Guardian was spot it!), who was say that the Child Abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is all the fault of the Homosexuals! I am not sure where the cardinal is getting his information from; I would have thought he was well-place to know what was going on inside the Catholic Church. But whatever way you are look at this statement, it is totally ridiculous! We can only think that he has deliberately being provocative in order just to annoy the Gays or something.
Still, I am still try to parse the Cardinal’s argument. Is very difficult to figure out which it is. Is it:
Some Priests are Homosexuals
Some Priests are Paedophiles, therefore,
Some Homosexuals are Paedophiles?
As you can see, this is not work. All the priests who are paedophiles may not be the same ones who are also the homosexuals, and therefore if this is what the cardinal is saying, his argument is not valid. Perhaps then he is saying this:
Some Homosexuals are Paedophiles
Some Homosexuals are Priests, therefore,
Some Priests are Paedophiles
but also this, which if you follow it, is not a valid argument, even if the premises and the conclusion was true. The homosexuals who are paedophiles are not necessarily the same homosexuals who are priests. Therefore, I am led to the conclusion that the Cardinal’s argument is this:
All Priests are Paedophiles
Some Priests are Homosexuals, therefore,
Some Paedophiles are Homosexuals.
This argument, as you can see, have the virtue of being valid. However, it also have the vice of not being true! In the first place, the initial premise that all priests are paedophiles is not proven (in Ireland this argument is what they call “Beyond the Pail,” meaning only someone who wants to kick the bucket would dare make it). In the second place, the second premise that there are some priests who are homosexual is ALSO false. We know that there are NO homosexual priests because it is not allowed by the Vatican, and for the Cardinal to suggest that there are homosexual priests is a BIG disgrace!
I am think the cardinal has made a major mistake in confusing celibacy, which is not having sex with a lady, with homosexuality, which is not having sex with a lady, but also having sex with a man. Is celibacy with benefits. He is also forgetting that, for centuries, the Vatican has have had a special department, the Vatican Small Arms, or VSA, whose job it is to travel the world looking for Catholic men with short arms and then recruiting them into the priesthood, much like the Buddhists looking for reincarnated llamas. The logic was that men with short arms are less likely to have sex with anyone, including themselves, and therefore are more likely to make good priests, than long-armed men, who are more likely to make good baboons.
Mainly, however, I think, the problem is that the cardinal did not get the Memo, which was tell all clergy that the problem with the Child Abuse scandal is no longer the fault of the homosexuals. Now it is the fault of the Jews. The Cardinal is totally Off-Message! Si. Apparently, the scandal is all the result of a well-orchestrate campaign by Christ-killers; this is, at least, according to quotes attribute to Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto. Strangely, the bishop is now deny having ever said these words, but he does have also a track record, having previously criticize the Jews for esploiting the Holocaust and having also criticize homosexuality, in line with last year’s message.
Babini’s error, clearly, is one of Premature Anti-Semitism. The Memo which was telling all Clergy to now blame the Jews had not yet reach Cardinal Bertone, but Babini had got wind of it and was speak out of turn, thinking it was already Catholic Doctrine. Red Faces All Round at the Vatican!
So, just to be clear, here is the official doctrine of the Catholic Church for 2010 regarding the Child Abuse scandal:
It was Homosexuals in the Catholic Church responsible for molesting children, but there are no Homosexuals in the Catholic Church, it is all lies made up by the Jews.
There now. I am hope that is all perfectly clear.
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Comment by: Pope Epopt
Apr 15th 2010 at 09:04
Olé and Q.E.D, Manuel.
St. Thomas Aquinas is proudly smiling down at you, knowing that the art of Catholic disputation is not dead.
Comment by: Conor McCabe
Apr 15th 2010 at 15:04
Premature Anti-Semitism.
Could he not take tablets for that, same as the rest of us?
Comment by: Manuel Estimulo
Apr 16th 2010 at 11:04
Hola Pop!
As you know, I am not a controversial person, but when logic rears its ugly head, I often feel the need to push it back down again like an inappropriate erection during confession. I understand nurses use the back of a cold spoon and give it a good whack! This is my intellectual equinvalent.
Besos
Manuel
Comment by: Manuel Estimulo
Apr 16th 2010 at 11:04
Hola Conor!
It is a contradistinction in terms, isn’t it? You could only be prematurely anti-Semitic before the Jews were invented. Any subsequent prejudice is entirely justifiable.
Besos
Manuel