THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
06/11/16 21:35
Why do Baptists discourage sexual intercourse? Because it leads to dancing."
(Methodist joke)
Father Gabriele Amorth the Vatican's chief exorcist is in the news, having found the Devil hiding under a yoga block. The Daily Mail reports last week that the good father warned a group of Catholic faithful about the dangers of yoga. "You think you are doing it for stretching,” said Father Gabriele, “but it leads to Hinduism.”
This cautionary pronouncement, like the joke about sex and dancing, is a case of the "slippery slope," a fallacy of informal logic unfailingly invoked by Father G to spare the gleefully incautious any untimely plunge into the twin abysses of Pleasure and Enlightenment.
Now I’ve been to some yoga classes that could be described as hell, but I'm guessing that most of the people who practice it (those of my acquaintance at any rate) really are "doing it for stretching." Among other things. But you’ve been warned...
"My advice to young people," Father Gabriele adds in yet another slide into illogic, "would be to watch out for nightclubs, because the path is always the same: alcohol, sex, drugs and Satanic sects."
Excellent, might put that on next terms’ fliers and advertising...
(Methodist joke)
Father Gabriele Amorth the Vatican's chief exorcist is in the news, having found the Devil hiding under a yoga block. The Daily Mail reports last week that the good father warned a group of Catholic faithful about the dangers of yoga. "You think you are doing it for stretching,” said Father Gabriele, “but it leads to Hinduism.”
This cautionary pronouncement, like the joke about sex and dancing, is a case of the "slippery slope," a fallacy of informal logic unfailingly invoked by Father G to spare the gleefully incautious any untimely plunge into the twin abysses of Pleasure and Enlightenment.
Now I’ve been to some yoga classes that could be described as hell, but I'm guessing that most of the people who practice it (those of my acquaintance at any rate) really are "doing it for stretching." Among other things. But you’ve been warned...
"My advice to young people," Father Gabriele adds in yet another slide into illogic, "would be to watch out for nightclubs, because the path is always the same: alcohol, sex, drugs and Satanic sects."
Excellent, might put that on next terms’ fliers and advertising...