Re: ‘Anonymous posts are not the real issue’ (Daily News, Aug. 27) Today’s editorial provides an interesting discussion of the problem of anonymous commentators who are prone to be rhetorically outrageous and then fail to sign their names.

All was going along smoothly until the penultimate paragraph where once again your committee of authors misuses the “begs the question” phrase.

Should be “raises the question,” dear editor — “begs the question” is the name of an informal fallacy in logic, as you must know.

It is my job as a dedicated reader of print media to point out this howler every time it occurs. I have been very busy of late.

Bob Lane Nanaimo Credit: Bob Lane; The Daily News

https://episyllogism.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/welfare.pdf

ABSTRACT (ABSTRACT) Careful readers will have noticed that the entire right-wing rant starts with not just a hypothetical but with a conditioned hypothetical: “It was almost as though some were resigned to their plight” writes the unknown ranter.What? Did the writer see that fatalism in the television images? Is that like USA Senator Frist when he diagnosed ahealthy Terri Shiavo from a video image? I know that people see what they want to see, but this is a bit like Alicewhen she claims to have seen “No one” on the road.

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Dear sir: Your borrowed editorial in the Saturday edition is such a fine example of nonsense that I cannot refrain from commenting. I tried for several minutes to find a cogent argument in the piece from the National Post, but, alas, I could not. All that is there is an attitude, an agenda, an assertion that the death and destruction in New Orleans is partly the result of “a reliance on social assistance.”

The National Post piece suggests that it is always the fault of a welfare system that the poor are poor; my goodness, it finger-wags, “if you had any self-reliance at all you would have picked up your children and your sick and ill parents and carried them out of the rising water on your back.” But, no, because of government aid in the past you waited for government aid again as the water rose and the stench filled the air. Careful readers will have noticed that the entire right-wing rant starts with not just a hypothetical but with a conditioned hypothetical: “It was almost as though some were resigned to their plight” writes the unknown ranter. What? Did the writer see that fatalism in the television images? Is that like USA Senator Frist when he diagnosed ahealthy Terri Shiavo from a video image? I know that people see what they want to see, but this is a bit like Alicewhen she claims to have seen “No one” on the road. (“What good eyes you must have,” said the Queen.)

To be brief I won’t mention the unsubstantiated factoids and empty psychological analysis from a distance. I do not think that we know enough about the event, the assistance, the aftermath to preach from afar. And certainly not from so far right!

And in spite of the editorial stance I urge that those that can should go to the Canadian Red Cross and make a donation.

Bob Lane

Nanaimo, B.C.

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Certainty as Demonic in Religion, Science, and Society

by Lex Crane

Certainty is easily accessible

and is

impossible to achieve.

This paradoxical circumstance has nurtured demonic forces in human life, which, in turn, have found expression in violence, destruction, and death on a massive scale. The forces are within us and in our institutions. They must be transcended if we are to ensure the survival of our own species, as well as that of countless others.

Easily accessible certainty is rooted in need; the unreachable is based on knowledge of reallity. Thus there is subjective certainty on one hand; and objective cer-tainty on the other. Since subjective certainty emerges in response to need, it is always available in the amount required. (Wheelis 81) The deeper the need, the more intense the certainty that develops. All humans have a need for some degree of certainty in order to feel secure in a contingent existence.

Read the paper here and respond!