The Amityville Horror Claims Once More
People seem to explain things they cannot understand with the help of the supernatural power. “The Amityville Horror” is the story about the Lutz family and events happening with them in the house they have newly bought. The book became a bestseller, although there are different opinions, whether this story contains any truth or not. Many resources tried to study the case.
For example, ABC News published a rather substantial article with the specialists’ thoughts, regarding the events. Nevertheless, the author of the paper did not conclude who was right and who was wrong (News).Apart from the claims, made by the Lutzes and the author, Jay Anson, there are claims, concerning other characters of the book. I have chosen and SEARCHed two of them. My first claim is the one by the local priest, Father Mancuso, who claimed to have suffered from illnesses like the flu after visiting the house (Anson). Moreover, he believed that the car accident he got in was also caused by the supernatural power, the demon, he had contacted, when he was sanctifying the room (Anson). In order to conclude if the claim is reasonable or not, some research should be done. To begin with, the claim contains an argument with the following map: the car accident, as well as Father’s sickness, were caused by the supernatural power because:
A) they appeared after Father Mancuso visits to the house;
B) either problem with the car or such severe symptoms of the illnesses have never happened with the man before. Therefore, there are two premises. To affirm whether the argument is good or bad, it is necessary to analyze the premises, as well as examine the evidences, supporting the claim. If at least one premise is unacceptable, irrelevant, or insufficient, the argument is fallacious (Schick & Vaughn).There is very little evidence, proving the reasonability of the claim. The first evidence is that symptoms and the car accident happened after Father Mancuso went to the mansion. This evidence is empirical and not biased, as it is completely possible that the priest visited the family, had problems with the car and then got sick right after that. However, the claim does not explain this evidence. In fact, the situation is opposite. After having visited the house, witnessed the mysterious phenomena, and watched how Kathy and George started to panic, Father Mancuso believed that there was the paranormal involved and blamed the demon for his own problems.
The second piece of evidence is that such problems have never happened with the priest before. This evidence is also not empirical, not biased, and is possible to check. It cannot be explained by the claim as well. Having examined this evidence together with the previous, I may conclude that these pieces are fallacious, so are the premises. As a result, the argument is invalid giving no reasons to believe that demon caused the events. Either …
