Fun With Fallacies: Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor

Which fallacies are the good cardinal guilty of and why?

...he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme why he thought it was dangerous to be governed by reason alone. He said that "supposedly faithless societies" ruled only by reason were like those created by Hitler and Stalin, ripe for "terror and oppression". Full Story

These are the ones I identified in the course of five minutes. Can you identify any others?

* Part to whole Comparison fallacy - If its true that societies created by Hitler and Stalin were "supposedly faithless", that doesn't mean that all "supposedly faithless" society are like Hitler and Stalins or that "supposedly faithless societies" necessarily will end up like Hitler and Stalins.

* Faulty Analogy - Hitler and Stalins societies had more going on in them than just being "supposedly faithless".

* Causal Oversimplification - Ignores qualifiers that made Hitlers and Stalins societies "ripe for terror and oppression".

* Unrepresentative Sample - Stipulating that the two examples are valid, two bad examples are not enough examples to show a trend that "supposedly faithless" societies are likely to be "ripe for terror and oppression".

* Special Pleading - Because not only "supposedly faithless societies" were ripe for "terror and oppression". I know that a few in the catholic church leadership over the centuries have quite a bit of blood on thier hands.

* Appeal to Consequences - Simply asserts that "supposedly faithless societies" are "ripe for terror and oppression" without saying why.

* Appeal to Emotion - Trying to evoke strong negative emotions in relation to a society ruled by "reason alone"

* Non-Sequitur - Because I don't think that any rational person would say that Hitler "governed by reason alone". In my view, Hitler was a little insane.

Faulty reasoning in leadership is scary.

Its also interesting to note that his motivation to respect atheists seems to be driven by his "concern about the increasing unpopularity of the Christian voice in public life".

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