Logic

Take The Mantra:

The only thing I ask of the religious is that they consider the depths to which religion has sunk man.

Nothing in that mantra can logically be construed to mean that no non-religious man has sunk man; the statement makes a claim only about the religious. It says nothing about the non-religious.

Why is it, then, that when I quote The Mantra on other people's blogs, I invariably receive a response "yeah well, Hitler wasn't religious and look what he did." Well, yeah Hitler wasn't religious and look what he did.

The Mantra is stated as it is for a very simple reason: it would be demonstrably fallacious for The Mantra to be "the only people capable of sinking man to great depths are the religious." See Hitler, and what he did, above.

UPDATE: The comments are raging on this point of logic, at the comments linked to above. I think the bluntness of the mantra induces people into a sort of emotional stupor.