SLOPPY THINKING
One of the temptations to sloppy thinking is having incomplete information. Whether telling a story, presenting a reasoned argument, or just trying to form one’s own opinion on a subject, it frequently is the case that gaps exist between those things known for sure and those things which can only be guessed at, gaps that one can easily fill in with the ‘most likely’ supposition.
I used to sit and listen to my father, a raconteur of sorts, do this, filling in ‘probable’ explanations of how things happened, or how a principal got from point A to point B. In a certain sense, such explanations are arbitrary and serviceable, keep the story moving along, and aren’t the real point. In another sense, when discussing matters of morals or doctrine, all the leaps of logic need to be carefully scrutinized, and must be found to be more than merely probable.
For instance, if one is of a naturalistic turn of mind, it is tempting to explain away miracles by assuming that what ‘probably’ happened was surely fabrication, hallucination, or miscommunication. This brings along the benefit of preserving one’s naturalistic worldview, wherein all things fit into a simple schema that precludes any serious consideration of mystery.
