One of the most basic pro-religion arguments volleyed at atheists is the "what-if argument." What if, they argue, people need to believe in religion, even if it's wrong, since it helps make them happy? Then, the conclusion is, that us atheists should shut up and let others live how they want to live.

What-if problems are always flawed and reveal the biases of their users.

Because for every what-if positive argument, there is always a what-if negative. Therefore, someone using a what-if positive is just justifying their existing opinion.

There are plenty of what-if negative counter-arguments to religion. What if religion is just a memeplex that infects people's minds, pushing them into mindless servitude to some powerful, but untrue, concept? What if people are brutalized by practicing religion? Christianity, for example, has guilt as a major commodity. Would I be happier if my life was riddled with guilt? Would I appreciate and experience all the beautiful moments that I have on Earth if I was torn by a sense of hesitation?

While I agree that anybody proselytizing anything is irritating, if one wants accuracy, one should be(a)ware the "what-if" fallacy, and consider both the positive and the negative.

Oh yeah, and Thank you William Safire for supporting nixing the "under God" part from the Pledge. While I can live with "God" in the memespace, I "pray" that America might give me hope and stomach being accurate this time around.

Denying the Antecedent

This is the logical fallacy when after you assert that A implies B, you then assert that Not A implies Not B.

The latter does not follow from the former. For example, "I live in Palo Alto, therefore I must be in California" does not imply "I don't live in Palo Alto, therefore I don't live in California"

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I'm re-taking a course this quarter, Math 53 - Differential Equations. I had taken this course this past summer, but at the last minute decided that I didn't want to take the final. Why did I do this?

I came to the conclusion that week that the pursuit of my passions was principally important (and it still is). Part of pursuing those passions involves maximizing the amount of activities that you do that are passionate from the get go. That at every instant, I should be pursuing my passions. I said to myself, well, if I REALLY wanted to prove to myself that this was an important goal, then I wouldn't even take this final coming up. And so I didn't. I proved something, but in retrospect I don't think my reasoning was correct.

Reasoning that "rejecting the dispassionate committed me to the pursuit of passion" was a little irrational. I committed the fallacy of denying the antecodent. I took "Doing things I'm passionate about means I care about my passions" to mean also "Doing things I'm not passionate about means I don't care about my passions" Bad Phil Bad Phil.

From an aphorism-like perspective, I could've smelt an excuse and thought about the problem more deeply, or applied some "common sense" algorithm. Further proof that you sould unify both your rational thinking and your emotions.

On the other hand, rejecting things you are dispassionate about gives you more time for things that you are passionate about, so indirectly it helps your passions, but only indirectly.

I wonder how effective a matrix listing one's tendencies to commit logical fallacies can be at determining someone’s personality, character, and propensities for certain behavior, and therefore shape their destiny.

Logical fallacies are common failures that humans make when analyzing arguments. Some examples are things like, “comparing apples and oranges” or making a quick leap from correlation to causation. A fairly comprehensive list appears here.

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Fallacies

In order to understand what a fallacy is, one must understand what an argument is. Very briefly, an argument consists of one or more premises and one conclusion. A premise is a statement (a sentence that is either true or false) that is offered in support of the claim being made, which is the conclusion (which is also a sentence that is either true or false).

Everytime I learn a new fallacy of thinking, I suddenly become overwhelmed with a sense of awe at the amount of ridiculousness upon which I've founded many of my ideas that I consider sacred I then quickly retrace my steps through a lot of my thinking, and revise and correct accordingly. Good times, and a good opportunity to learn some new Latin.