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Can religion be logical?

Aqualung

Tasty
Interesting... gmelrod beat me to what I was going to say by 20 minutes... It is a good thing though, he said it better than I could of. :bow:

Pfff. I said it way before him, just more incoherently. :cool:

BS in math here (a real degree, not a joke)
I'll be getting a BA in math.

I wish I could get a BA in philosophy, too, but school is just too expensive.
 

lunamoth

Will to love
Originally Posted by Aqualung
Exactly. And at some point, going backwards from fact to fact, you must simply accept a fact, unproven (that is to say - on faith), from which to work. I can logically prove that I am really sweaty right now, but only if I take on faith that I actually did just get back from work. Or, I could prove that I just got back from work if I just accept that I went to work in the morning. Etc. It is simply impossible to prove every single statement. You must take something on faith before logic can even set in. Faith preceeds logic in other words.


Yes you get it. At some point a method other than logic (deductive reasoning) must be used. This can be science (inductive reasoning) or revelation or even authority. But logic cannot give us new general principles (like God's existence) it can only apply general principles to specific examples.

What Aqualung is calling 'faith' in a logical deduction is actually the base assumptions for the logical argument. It seems to me that calling this 'faith' is stretching the meaning of the word beyond a point where it is useful. But maybe that's just me. :shrug:
 

adthelad

Member
Do you not believe a human is an immortal spiritual being?
Well it depends on where you draw the line between fact and belief.

By the everyday definition - I don't believe we are immortal spiritual beings - I KNOW IT.

However if we're being very restrictive all I know for sure is that I have lived previous lives and not died when my body did.
 

Ryan2065

Well-Known Member
adthelad said:
By the everyday definition - I don't believe we are immortal spiritual beings - I KNOW IT.

However if we're being very restrictive all I know for sure is that I have lived previous lives and not died when my body did.
And I know that you are wrong. If what you say is a fact and not a belief, you should be able to prove that I am wrong and you are right. I am pretty positive you cannot prove that you have lived previous lives and haven't died when your body did, therefore you believe this.
 

Aqualung

Tasty
Huh? Mormons do math?
:angel2:

:p Apparantly really well, at that.

lunamoth said:
What Aqualung is calling 'faith' in a logical deduction is actually the base assumptions for the logical argument. It seems to me that calling this 'faith' is stretching the meaning of the word beyond a point where it is useful.
How so?

Side note: "useful" is a product of the fact that everything must be taken on faith. We have to use things that are "useful" not "proven true". We can never operate from the standpoint of "proven true", but must always operate from the standpoint of "useful".
 

lunamoth

Will to love
:p Apparantly really well, at that.


How so?

Side note: "useful" is a product of the fact that everything must be taken on faith. We have to use things that are "useful" not "proven true". We can never operate from the standpoint of "proven true", but must always operate from the standpoint of "useful".

The error or deception here is to imply that anything that is not a scientific statement, i.e., one supported by evidence marshaled forth the way scientists do in support of their scientific claims, is a matter of faith. To use 'faith' in such a broad way is to strip it of any theological significance the term might otherwise have.
Such a conception of faith treats belief in all non-empirical statements as acts of faith. Thus, belief in the external world, belief in the law of causality, or even fundamental principles of logic such as the principle of contradiction or the law of the excluded middle, would be acts of faith on this view. There seems to be something profoundly deceptive and misleading about lumping together as acts of faith such things as belief in the Virgin birth and belief in the existence of an external world or in the principle of contradiction. Such a view trivializes religious faith by putting all non-empirical claims in the same category as religious faith. In fact, religious faith should be put in the same category as belief in superstitions, fairy tales, and delusions of all varieties.

From Skeptic's Dictionary
 

HopefulNikki

Active Member
Is this supposed to convey some deeper meaning or allusion?

I this supposed to be some trick, but trite, question?
Nutshell didn't answer, but my point was that if faith has value, and logic and reason has value, and both are given to us by God, then I can't see how they're as mutually exclusive as he seems to think that they are.
 

rojse

RF Addict
No. I think that religion demands that it's followers leave such ideas as logic and science at home before heading off to church for prayer.

From a biblical perspective, Is it logical to say that the universe is six thousand years old when we can see stars ten thousand light years away? Is it logical to assert that the entire world was flooded, and have absolutely no idea whatsoever where those trillions of litres of water went to when the waters receded? Or that the ark built to save all the animals had only a male and a female of each species on board? What did all of the animals eat when they got off? Some of the rebuttals for these questions seem to be bordering on the farcical, except that they cite their explanations quite seriously.

I am sure that there are other people far more knowledgeable in their arguments about sections of the Bible than I, and I am sure that they will have a multitude of logical arguments regarding this.

Religion requires faith, and faith is believing in something that you cannot be certain of. What is believed is completely unproven, unscientific, and illogical.
 

Ryan2065

Well-Known Member
Comprehend said:
A degree in philosophy is a joke?

I am curious to know why that is since I happen to have a degree in philosophy too and I seem to be doing ok with my joke degree. ;)
No no, I meant the BS part didn't mean bull ****. I, for some reason, get that alot. :)

Fiance tried to do philosophy and she felt it was too hard... She's sticking with her psychology and english majors instead. I know it isn't a joke degree.
 

Aqualung

Tasty
Religion requires faith, and faith is believing in something that you cannot be certain of. What is believed is completely unproven, unscientific, and illogical.

Everything requires faith. There is not one thing you believe or know that you actually KNOW on anything other than faith.


I posted something above about illogical. You should read it, because you're basically reposting things I have already countered. It would help this debate progress if people didn't post the same thing and I have to post my exact same counters. You should adress my counter points instead.
 
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