I was raised in a small, college town in rural Pennsylvania. That scenic venue actually happens to be "[t]he only town in Pennsylvania," Bloomsburg. (It is, as the Wikipedia article notes, no longer the actual, only town in Pennsylvania, but certainly still claims the title.) Yes, my hometown hosts such wonderful events as the sophisticated Bloomsburg Fair and the infamous Bloomsburg U. block party. While I no longer live in Bloomsburg, I am still rather attached to the area due to family and friends who remain in the area. I try to keep up with events by reading the local paper, The Press Enterprise.
While growing up, my friends and I often read one section of the paper that seemed to be created solely for our personal amusement. The paper offers a section called 30 Seconds where area residents can either call in a message they want published provided it is under thirty seconds in duration or can write in via email or normal postage. The paper does it to serve the noble purpose of providing a generally promulgated forum where people can anonymously voice their opinions on various topics, from national politics to local sports; however, the section often is dominated by local crazies, ignoramuses, and fundamentalists eager to make their "truth" known. Inevitability, the yokels fail to do anything but establish their own ignorance, craziness, or level of delusion. Thankfully, this is a foolproof recipe for hilarity.
I plan to showcase the hilarity here, occasionally responding to particularly ignorant or vapid posts as well as arguments that are, despite having been continually proven fallacious or unsound, repeated ad nauseam. I am unsure how often I will do this though and am debating either doing it daily (yes, there is almost something unbelievable everyday) or simply compiling the best of the entries over the week and then addressing them in one larger entry. I'm open to suggestions (if I actually get any readers).
For the inaugural entry into this series, I'm going to post a 30 Seconds entry from a wonderfully erudite man, a local bastion of conservative politics, an expert on conspiracy theories and the ACLU, and a ufologist, Robert Runyon. A regular renaissance man, Runyon took on the role of apologist and clearly established the existence of a "god," a feat other apologists have been trying for centuries, in a mere 123 words. I know that by this point you are waiting with baited breadth for what can only be the greatest argument to grace the philosophy of religion ever (greater than even the inaccurately labeled "victorious" modal ontological argument of Plantinga). Without further ado, the argument:
Law is a rule of conduct or procedure recognized by a community as binding or enforceable by authority. Law is also a statement of scientific truth, a mathematical principle and above all carries undeniable self evident truths. Law is a manifestation of conditions recognized in and by all things. Law was present long before the assent of man and can be traced back to a point of singularity. For law to exist it must have authority. It must have and set conditions, purpose and direction with intent and must be in harmony. All of which infers that law itself could not exist without reason and reason cannot exist without intelligence. Therefore, law stands with self evident truth that GOD does in fact exist! Robert Runyon, 30 Seconds. The Press Enterprise 11 (Sept. 10, 2007).I know, you are all speechless right? I was too - at least until I drew air back into my lungs after the initial guffaw and the subsequent resulting guffaws. What's the most obvious logical fallacy here? I'm going to have to go with fallacy of equivocation and note a particular disjoint between legislative law as discussed in the philosophy of law and scientific law, a technical term employed in the philosophy of science - a disjoint that Runyon clearly ignores.
I'll touch more on this tomorrow though, even I have to sleep after all.
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