Following a few heated exchanges between us on Twitter, a journalist friend of mine has decided to put up a blogpost defending the ultimate accommodationist position: Why can't we all just make nice-nice and be happy together?
Okay, that was taking a bit of liberty (strictly tongue-in-cheek, of course!) in paraphrasing her position, but basically she is questioning the source of belief and the lack thereof. In particular, she is examining those beliefs that are not evidential/ material/ cogent in nature (Hmmm... Is there any other kind?)
She starts with a valid question:
How do we know these exist, if we choose not to believe that they exist?
Most unfortunately, she considers this as a rhetorical question, and therefore, comes up with a simplistic, outlandishly puerile, answer:
The answer to this is also simple: we know they exist and therefore we believe that they exist.
I can't even begin to describe the logical fallacies in this circular argument, that a seasoned journalist should never have committed IM(NS)HO. When did journalism stop being about fact-checking, objectivity, logical consistency, integrity of reportage and all that jazz? Sigh.
