Religion vs. Logic

One of the things that most amazes me is some people's insistence that they have rational, logical reasons for believing in their religion. How can people claim this? This is where I have to say that someone would be just plain wrong. Religion may be comforting, or social, or blindly followed. But it is not rational.

:popcorn:

Why can't people simply admit that they did not use formal logic when determining their religious beliefs?

I'm usually playing for the other team.

Good question, though.

In fact, its a point of pride with them. They denounce rationality so they can dismiss it as inferior to the anti-knowledge of faith. They are willfully ignorant.

:hi:

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:hi:

what follows can indeed be logical.

they can get there from here if they start by begging the question?

Religious beliefs, to be distinguished from psychosis, need coherence and consistency.

The only question religion seeks to answer is "Why?", which is far from begging the question.

'Cuz without that, you can't get there from here.

I think the fine line you drew about being distinguished from psychosis is more like it.

So fine, it might as well be invisible to some.

Just like my pet dragon.

Sure you could construct a syllogism that could conclude that there must be a god or that a divine entity must have created the universe. But my point was that there is no rational, empirical evidence for the supernatural. For logic to be relevant, the premises would be highly questionable, and many people would not agree with them. Why can't religious people admit that their beliefs are not bound by reason? I'm not opposed to people having those beliefs (I may not want to be in a romantic relationship with someone who had those beliefs, but that's another story...), but I think people really start to lose credibility when they play the rational card when it comes to religion.

Just empiricism.

Finally someone actually understands logic! It's the premises that matter.

Has no one read Lewis Carroll/C. L. Dodgson? He once logically proved a dowager is a thistle. My exwife and I used to play the "Dodgson Game" where we would try to end up with the most outrageous conclusions from seemingly reasonable premises.

Thank you for saying something that I've been trying to drum into people's heads for years.

Khash.

Give your ex a thistle from me.

In this case, absent proof, is it more valid to presume there is a God or that there is no God?

No. Carroll notwithstanding, The premise that God exists is not verifiably true, so the argument is unsound regardless of how valid it's judged to be.

It's not simply proof that's absent. There's no evidence that can be reliably said to support the assertion that God exists.

There is a lack of conclusive evidence both ways, so that makes both arguments equally "valid" in that regard. There is far more to the issue than "evidence".

Something does not need to be proved beyond any doubt to have logic behind it.

Many an internally consistent belief is grounded in an utterly batshit crazy delusion.

If you must make an assumption, make it a small one. Something like "the universe exists and can be observed" rather than "an infinite, eternal, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent entity exists who loves each and every one of us and has a place in His plan for everyone."

true, an assumption might be an utterly batshit delusion, but all you are doing is handicapping, that is, I'm going to talk about the quality of assumptions without proof that it is batshit delusion.

Assumptions themselves can beg the question, be circular, etc.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=39390&mesg_id=39800

:rofl:

I :loveya: Angry Zhade.

isn't a matter of logic. It's just someone without any particular attempt at evidence saying "I don't like that one", which has nothing to do with logic at all.

And of course, assumptions don't beg a question, not in terms of logic, nor are they circular. They are assumptions.

you do realize that. right?

I just hate it when they insist that their reasoning be equated to logic and scientific method. It's apples and oranges and nothing that is "faith based" should be taught to our kids as science!

I could care less what anyone believes in, just as long as they keep their deities out of the government, schools and my bedroom.

We've become far too tolerant of the methodical dismantling of the wall separating church and state because everyone's afraid of offending the xians in this country.

Who didn't maintain that FAITH was at the center of their beliefs rather than rational or logical reasons.

Now, having religious faith means that you believe certain things (even if to nonreligious persons they seem counterintutive or illogical) and behave as if they are true. In fact, behave with CONFIDENCE that they are true.

So you might find such a person saying "my belief in miracles is rational and logical, because my starting point is faith, and from that viewpoint, my beliefs are logically consistent and rational."

Doesn't work that way for me, but then, I have no Faith (with a capital F).

...people who claim that there is actually rationality behind their religious beliefs.

If my understanding of overarching christian doctrine is correct.

Because we Pagan Gnostics are a completely different animal. :)

...who will remain nameless because it's impolite to call people out (not to mention against the rules), but I can never understand what he's talking about. I think he has some kind of mental disorder, but that's just pure conjecture on my part.

Anyway, he talked in circles long enough that I put him on my Ignore list. I feel much better, now.

This is just a firestarter. If you like, why not go back into the archives and drag out some of the old arguments--it's all been said, before.

The one opening in this supposed enlightening discussion would show up if you were adamantly opposed to religion (any or all) but chose to argue for, rather than against and then do it honestly, with passion.

It does wonders for your brain.

If you look at it from a realistic perspective, which some do but many do not.

I know some people who claim to have had actual revelations. Personal, mystical experiences they feel can only be attributed to a higher being. One said it was a voice that came out of nowhere and saved her life. The other two both wouldn't say what it was, (different events) but say, at least for them, it was unmistakable as a coincedence.

Oddly enough, not a one claims to be "born again." One is Catholic, for example. The others are flavors of Pagan. Fine folk.

Well, except for the truth that their experiences (which could be anything from a real mystical experience to delusions to bad acid) impart solely to them.

I've never been big on telling believers they're illogical, since they can be quite logical in their beliefs (which, however, do tend to be based on unproven assertions).

although someone who has a mystical experience or something that just "feels right" to them accepts the premise and proceeds logically and rationally from there. They don't care that the premise isn't reproducible in anyone else....although I suppose a congregation is exactly that.

And that's why some of the strident assertions that religious believers are as a rule irrational, illogical, insane, deluded, credulous by definition are simply wrong, as an empirical matter as well as a logical one. Religious people just have a couple of big premises that, true or false, don't, as a rule, affect their ability to function, or prevent them from being scientists, politicians, etc.

I can more quickly accept the rationality of someone declaring a sky monkey that I can't see or hear under the rules of dieties than someone who asserts something empirically false, such as, religious people have a diagnosable mental illness. The first is just something that is a leap of faith, the second is just asking me to not believe my own lying eyes.

Believing in something that you can not see is stronger than reality. The human mind is whacked!

is because people fear logic, fear the real world, and fear the finality of death.

Religion, by definition almost, is completely illogical.

I have no respect for it.

Atheists often claim that religious people are engaging in "wishful thinking" because they are afraid of death.

One could as easily say that atheists are engaged in wishful thinking because they are afraid of being held accountable for their lives.

The truth is that religious people are the people who are the least afraid of death of anyone I know.

Everyone bases his life on certain beliefs and/or assumptions. Most people admit that they have them. Some don't admit it.

At least with this:

The truth is that religious people are the people who are the least afraid of death of anyone I know.

The hijackers on 9/11 weren't afraid of death, that's for sure.

There is a first time for everything, I guess.

:pals:

...that's because they didn't really believe they were going to die. They were simply going to transition to another state of being and go somewhere else.

True, it could be for other reasons than fear that they refuse to believe that they're going to die, but someone would have to tell me what they are. The possibility of eternal torment is preferable to them over true death.

I think that atheists are just as afraid of death as anyone else is. All the ones I know are, anyway.

Not one of them would allow me to put a gun to his/her head and pull the trigger.

Not one.

But then, most of the religious people I know wouldn't, either.

I guess it all depends on the degree to which one believes.

Everyone is afraid of death. It's just that atheists like myself can accept the reality, while believers need to have fantasy worlds to ease their mind.

Frankly, facing a possibility of hell or reincarnation as a lowly animal seems to be a lot less ease than a belief that one just checks out. Moreover, it's inconsistent with another theme, that the religious are terrified into behaving by the fear of punishment in an afterlife. They can't both be true for any one individual.

In sum, there's not a whole lot of ease in the fantasy world. If that were the purpose, one would invent a religion that was easy and guaranteed heaven.

I'm talking deeply devout people, ask them whether they are going to heaven personally.

Almost everyone will say yes.

If religion is a means to comfort those without your fortitude over death, there wouldn't be a need to create a hell in the first place. The possibility of hell or reincarnation isn't comforting. The concept of religion being a fantasy to comfort people afraid of their own death can't be right, or religion would insist that everyone gets a trophy.

It treads on the concept that religion is to terrorize and force people to capitulate if it comforts. Both can't be true.

I'm not sure what it means to only ask deeply devout people. I assume it's a circular proposition, in that anyone certain of their salvation is also certain that he is deeply devout.

...that religion ONLY served one purpose??? No, of course not. There are multiple facets.

Original religions were created to explain what was, at the time, unexplainable. The creation of an afterlife was to quell our fears of death. Hell was created as a method of control.

And of course, none of these things were created for these reasons consciously.

Think, please.

It's beginning to sound really complicated, and throwing in that it's done unconsciously makes it more complicated yet.

It is large, it contains multitudes.

Maybe there's room for something good in its purposes or effects after all, if it's complicated and rooted in the unconscious.

It just evolved over a long period of time to serve different purposes as the needs arose. It's not hard to understand, but maybe I'm doing a poor job of explaining it.

I'm guessing that you and I would agree that, after death, there is nothing. Oblivion. An end to all consciousness, all life, all awareness.

And probably no return.

Yet you would also no doubt categorize me as "religious", whereas I categorize myself simply as "open".

:)

I'm talking in over-simplified terms to try to explain. I doubt anyone can ever come to terms entirely with an end to their existence. It truly is mind blowing to think about.

although it appears that there are various coping mechanisms the brain uses once a person reaches a certain age, or a certain state of ill health. And these coping mechanisms seem to have the purpose of allowing the mind to finally just accept the inevitable, and let go.

The prospect of violent death is the only thing that bothers me. No one likes pain, and the fact is, most deaths are painful. But I think I could accept the pain of disease or old age (been going through both of those for many years now). I don't like the idea of dying in a car accident, or in a hail of bullets; but the fact of death itself doesn't bother me much. I'm ready to die right this minute.

Alan W Watts used to begin his day by standing for 10 minutes in front of the mirror and laughing at himself. I think that's a healthy exercise.

:)

I live less than 20 miles outside of Washington DC. I'm 21, but for some reason I'm convinced that I will probably die when a nuclear bomb goes off in DC sometime in the future.

It bothers me to think about it. In the end, there is nothing I could do aside from leave the DC area. And maybe living near DC is good, because it is where the politicians live, and if we were to attack ourselves, the politicians would want to be safe.

Who knows.

I have to go to DC on occasion, and I'm always very glad to leave. I hate big cities.

When I was your age, I was convinced I'd be dead by age 35. I just turned 50, so I guess I was wrong. . . .

:D

My attitude today is that I will go on living and creating as long as I continue to wake up in the morning.

I think it's simply an instinctive drive not to die until I've had a chance to pass on my genetic code. It's much like the willingness parents have to lay down their own lives to protect their offspring. Instinctively, the continuation of our genetic line is more important than our own individual existence.

That said, I'd rather die in an interesting way than a dull way. I guess because the beginning of my life was so boring that I want the end to be as interesting as possible.

"After the seventh shot of whiskey, he walked out of the house with a gun in his hand and said, 'This has been a long time coming, Bobby.'"

so I guess my calendar is free. :)

...and maybe I'm sick for having done this, but I've thought about how I would most want to die, and how I would least want to die.

And, I decided that the worst possible way to die, was slowly, and in a ton of pain.

Exposure to radiation, like I would experience if an atomic bomb went off in DC, would be exactly that type of death. Slow and painful. It would suck.

That makes me worry even more.

They deduce that there is a power with greater ability than ours and that such a power has had a hand in our life/creation/etc.

quite rationally came up with the Prime Mover concept and Aquinas quite rationally explained God. Spinoza and Descartes already went over this territory.

This business of being logical and rational is highly overrated, and most of us aren't all that rational or logical at all. We live primarily in the realm of our senses and emotions, not logic, and canards about logic are simply diversions.

What's rational about patriotism, love, hate, art, music... all those things we appreciate and act on through emotion? What's rational about tastes in food or sexual attraction?

While we're at it, we could always go back to "What is real, anyway?" How many forms of logic and reason are there? Do Venn diagrams and funny little symbols really define everything we can know?

Religion has its own rationality, probably based on emotion. It is the same rationality that a Mozart concerto or James painting has. It affects us on a level that we cannot fully appreciate through an equation.

with no scientific or rational basis. It's such a part of our lives we can function pretending we aren't doing it unless we think about it.

I vote almost every election. I know full well that my vote won't change the election. Never has, never will. Rationally, I shouldn't bother. It isn't worth it on any material level. But I do it anyway, and I'm sufficiently self aware to realize that it's one of the many bullshit things I do.

It's a particularly irritating affectation of the atheists and agnostics on the board to presume a hard headed empiricism in sentence number one and then state in sentence number two that believers are irrational, insane, deluded, living in constant fear of death (among other statements) which someone with even a passing knowledge of believers or an interest in empirical fact would know is simply unsupported by the evidence. The believers "defend" themselves by saying that atheism requires faith, which it most certainly does not.

I think this discussion of logic and rationality pretends a dichotomy that just isn't there. Neither the fundamentalist atheists nor the religious will ever accept that they have a lot in common.

Well, so does everyone else. Looks like somebody deserves an IGNORE button.

Why?

Aquinas may have succeeded in rationalizing Catholic dogma, but he didn't even come close to explaining God. Not in any way, shape, or form.

I will give him credit for at least attempting to bring rationality back into theology. But I'm afraid it was far too late; the irrationalists were fully ensconced in power. The true rationalists of his time were turning from religion to science, so there was no longer a need to make God a syllogism.

He should have been born a century earlier.

First, when you say "religion" I'm going to assume that you mean this in the broadest sense of spiritual beliefs of any sort.

We've conceded here in past discussion that the dictionary is not an infallible source of definitions, but sometimes it still helps me to have starting point. So, here's Webster's definition(s) of the word Rational:



The only one of these definitions that seems applicable to your argument is number one. It seems to me that we are going to have to look at the definition of "reason" to see what "agreeable to reason" might mean.



From the word reason we get "reasonable." Closely related to rational. I dispute that rational, reasonable or the word "reason" refer only to matters of hard logic or objective sciences. If rational means "agreeable to reason" and reason means "a statement offered in explanation or justification" there are many explanations and justifications for faith beyond formal logic and scientific proofs. No one can make a case that the experiential and emotive sides of expression are less important, valuable or truthful than the empirical, objectifiable sides of observation. In other words, no one has proven that the poet is less valuable or important (or even less capable of expressing important truths about reality) than the scientist. Art is not the enemy of science. Spiritual belief is an art.

So, IF you want to incorrectly (in my view) narrow the definition of "rational" to mean only such things that fall into the domain of scientific objective inquiry, then religion may not be "rational" by that narrow definition. But it is also not "irrational" if by that we mean, ludicrous, based on no justifiable foundation, absurd, etc. It is not "irrational" (defined in that way) any more than an artist is irrational, or a lover is irrational, or a poet is irrational. If we really want to parse words, we might want to describe such things as a-rational.

There is more to life than scientific data. We should all be pretty thankful that's true. There's a quote out there that goes something like, "science may tell us how the world works, but the humanities makes it a world worth living for." I agree with treasonousbastard and his post. We need to be really careful in our elevation of hard logic and science that we don't do really silly things like start acting like arts and humanities are not equally important, equally valuable dimensions of human experience and expression. Religion falls into this latter category. Maybe it's not something all which to partake in, and that's fine. But saying "religion is not rational" is like saying "painting is not rational" - umm..ok. :D

as it appears in your statement "But it is also not "irrational" if by that we mean, ludicrous, based on no justifiable foundation, absurd, etc."

And can you tell me exactly what that is with regard to Religion? Im curious.

Further, as an artist... your comparison of religion to art well...

When myself and millions of other artists get together and start creating identical paintings for the purpose of attempting to govern and control how everyone around them thinks, acts and behaves... When we start taking our paintings to the street and telling everyone that "if you dont believe our painting is the most beautiful you will rot in art hell"... When we start making laws that favor only those who buy our paintings and do everything in our power to discredit anyone who dare speak out against our paintings, THEN you compare art to religion.

The day art embraces group think is the day art is dead.

As I said in my post, I assumed the OP was defining religion in its broadest sense, as the personal act of spiritual belief.

Not in the narrow sense you define it, as the oraganizational institutions attempting to govern and control how everyone around them things, acts and behaves.

Not all religion fits your narrow definition. And your comparison between religion and art is irrelevant. Know why? Because while it is incindiary and evokative, it has nothing to do with my point, which still stands. Saying religion is not rational is like saying poetry is not rational. No shit. That doesn't make it potentially less valuable or less meaningful to some. Rightfully so.

I totally misunderstood your point. I guess your 'no shit' statement was more on my level. ;). We are in agreement. :toast:

I did that the other day.

Cheers!

I think the human experience can fall into four categories
Cognitive
Emotive
Physical
Abstract/spiritual

Institutional religion falls more in the realm of the cognitive because it really is about ideology and not spirituality.

:-)

:popcorn:

Alexandria, Egypt, where I'm on a long-term work assignment. And as a Grumpy Atheist, thoroughly enjoying a little personal research into the fascinating history of ideas...mostly bad religious ideas...in this amazing city.

e.g., if you are a Xian and follow the Nicene Creed, you can thank Alexandria. The Creed resulted from a fierce, long-running battle over the human/divine nature of Christ, fought between the Xian "intellectual" centers of Alexandria and Constantinople.

Specifically between the two Alexandrians who led the feuding theologies: in this corner, the former street hustler and natural politician Anasthasius, and in that corner, the scholarly Arius.

You can tell who eventually won by the term "Arian Heresy."

(Where was Rome at this time? A backwater of the church. It was just one more Xian bishopric and not a very important one. It took the East/West split in the church...and the usual clever marketing to the gullible...to eventually make Rome the center of Xianity.)

For THREE CENTURIES the Xians in Alexandria battled over the nature of their God and his alleged Son. The battles weren't just intellectual, either, especially after Xianity became an Official State Religion.

Entire armies of joyless, city-hating Xian monks left Alexandria for monasteries in the nearby desert of Wadi Natrun. They occasionally popped back into town to "perform acts pleasing to God."

e.g, in 391 CE they (probably) destroyed the Alexandria Library and several thousand years of human cultural heritage. In 415 CE they attacked the pagan (Neo-Platonist) philospher Hypatia in the street and flayed the skin off her body.

And what was the end result of all this argument over the Xian Invisible? Who finally won the great battle of Xian ideas that cost so much brainpower, ink, and finally blood?

Well, I recently visited the site of the great church built in memory of "Saint" Anasthasius.

I can't visit the church itself. For the past few centuries it has been known as the Attarine Mosque.

:rofl:

That happened because of another Great Intellectual Argument about the nature of Christ--this time, between the orthodoxies in Constantinople and the Coptic (Egyptian) Xians, or Monophysites. The Copts split with church headquarters and established their own Pope and church hierarchy. By 641 CE they had become an oppressed minority in their own country. According to most accounts, the Copts were more than happy to throw open the gates of Alexandria to the Muslims...who are still here and officially count 94% of Egypt's population in their membership.

Speaking of backwaters, Pelagius of Britain is an interesting heretic.

I used to think of history in terms of waypoints where things might have gone better, for example what would have happened if the Library of Alexandria hadn't been destroyed? Would humanity have been better off?

But intellectual and technical progress is not always a good thing. Imagine if various ancient societies had developed nuclear weapons, and you realize it's damned lucky humans have survived so long as we have. And it's still doubtful that humans will continue to survive.

It's very possible that our sort of monkey intelligence will be an evolutionary dead end, and this perhaps accounts for some of the anti-intellectualism in various religions. Anti-intellectualism was selected for, not against. Societies with certain flavors of anti-intellectualism triumphed over other societies with more sophisticated intellectual traditions.

In "Cosmos," Carl Sagan made the opposite point: that with continuing intellectual and technical progress, we might have been living on other planets by now. Sam Harris put it another way in "The End Of Faith:" "We might have had the Internet by the Fifteenth Century."

Instead we got this:

The last recorded astronomical observation in the ancient Greek world was one by the Athenian philosopher Proclus in AD 475, nearly 1100 years after the prediction of an eclipse by Thales in 585 BC...

It would be over 1100 years--with the publication of Copernicus' "De revolutionibus" in 1543--before these studies began to move forward again. (From "The Closing Of The Western Mind: The Rise Of Faith And The Fall Of Reason" by Charles Freeman.)

IMO, technical progress usually turns into a disaster only if it's welded to a dangerous ideology like mindless nationalism. Or religion.

When he wrote about Alexandria back in the 1920's, E.M. Forster wrote that we remember Ptolemaic Alexandria strictly because of its technical progress. Until people came along like Philo Of Alexandria (for the Jews) and Clement (for the Xians), Alexandria was not known as a center of philosophy. And when that did happen, all its philosophy seems to have been centered on religion.

According to Foster, the Ptolemies encouraged that for a very good reason. (At least a good reason if you're a family of Macedonians pretending to be Egyptian Pharoahs.) If you start up schools of liberal thought and philosophy, pretty soon a bunch of your citizens might start thinking for themselves. And the LAST thing the Ptolemies (or any kings) needed was an early version of John Locke hanging around the Mouseion.

...science had to simmer on the back burner until then.

If all of life's a stage, then the "dark ages" of the west were an intermission of sorts. Behind the curtains the settings for Act One were frantically being replaced with the settings for Act Two.

A quick read is "A World Lit only by Fire," by William Manchester. The dark ages were not at all static.

Unfortunately I think we are nearing the end of Act Two now. As the inexpensive oil and gas are exhausted, and the climate changes much for the worse, the curtains on the Western World will close again.

But if our children and grandchildren are very lucky, and well prepared for the change, they will see the curtain open again.

Stay safe and cool over there, as much as you can!

:hi:

Logic is a strict system of manipulating symbols. To be valid the truth value of the input premises must be known. Consider:

1. Blonds have more fun.
   
2. Clairol makes you blond.
   
3. If you use Clairol, then you will have more fun.

If 1 and 2 are true, then 3 will be true. If you can't determine the truth of 1, then there is no meaning to this.

Rational means the same thing as reason. And whether it's the justification sense, or the right thinking sense, there is no inherent rigor on what constitutes good reason. Reason does not disallow fallacy and untruth. It's literally whatever you can use to persuade someone to your point of view. When I was a kid, I presented my father with detailed and well thought rationales for why he should get me an archery set, a pony, and a set of drums. He didn't find my arguments irrefutable, but I surely used reason.

In fact, religion itself is a rationale. It purports to give the underlying reasons or causes for why the universe is the way we find it. Considering that all of these come and go, truth cannot be the deciding factor.

--IMM

anyone.

Truth means many things. As you know, truth has meanings that range from Platonic absoluteness to having good aim.

We can take a good leap at whether an individual can possess the absolute truth by noting that it seems that no two individuals agree on everything, which gives at most, one person who can deserve that claim. That is common sense, without going into all the psychology of perception stuff like filters, attitudes, defenses, etc.

Our working truth is based on experience and reason, and for some, faith. It's validity is how closely it models the outside world. Some avenues of reason are irrational. Some dearly held beliefs can be shown to be irrational. I think that no one is immune to this.

--IMM

majority vote just as "good sense" and "sound judgment" are majority vote concepts. I never thought the folks at the mental wards were irrational - they were very rational in their own world and had excellent justifications (reasons) for what they were doing. They were often not logical and lack inference or discrimination skills - which is sometimes mislabled reasoning ability - but that is another subject, in my opinion.

If Reason is used as in "to state a reason" which means explanation, we then discuss the truth of the reason.

Indeed rational is sometimes defined as using reason, and reason is sometimes defined as being rational. :-) And reason is said to be the opposite of emotion making passional reasons hard to discuss. :-)

If forming a thought is all that reason, and/or rationality, really mean, showing that the thought is wrong/not true (your belief is irrational) is yet again a majority vote.

The best I come up with is that we can say that "logic" either did not get you to, or help form, that thought, or you used logic on a "given".

And then as we work from "givens" via logic, the result is still "logical", even if we disagree on the given being true. The logical result not being true is not unusual in my world! :-)

Unfortunately I can not recall Plato's definition of Truth - "Good" is the conjunction of Beauty, Symmetry, and Truth, per Plato, but I was always at a lost about how you proved any of these.

Now from the web http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GREECE/PLATO.HTM "a line that can be divided in the middle: the lower part of the line consists of the visible world and the upper part of the line makes up the intelligible world. Each half of the line relates to a certain type of knowledge: of the visible world, we can only have opinion (in Greek: doxa); of the intelligible world we achieve "knowledge" (in Greek, epistemŽ). Each of these divisions can also be divided in two. The visible or changing world can be divided into a lower region, "illusion," which is made up of shadows, reflections, paintings, poetry, etc., and an upper region, "belief," which refers to any kind of knowledge of things that change, such as individual horses. "Belief" may be true some or most of the time but occasionally is wrong (since things in the visible world change); belief is practical and may serve as a relatively reliable guide to life but doesn't really involve thinking things out to the point of certainty. The upper region can be divided into, on the lower end, "reason," which is knowledge of things like mathematics but which require that some postulates be accepted without question, and "intelligence," which is the knowledge of the highest and most abstract categories of things, an understanding of the ultimate good.", we find "truth" is not even part of the discussion.

Oh Well.... :-)

In this case I meant the absolute truth, which is unattainable.

There are those who believe they can gain knowledge of future events by counting the cows that are sitting down, or measuring the position of the planets. This is loaded with reason and rational thinking. If events do not demonstrate these relationships, rationale goes into overdrive.

Care must be taken in using terms like truth, reality, and proof, because the meaning of those things is slippery and subjective. On the other hand, people can believe things that can be shown to be false. That's the human nature we deal with every day.

--IMM

However, in pretty much every case (correct me if I'm wrong, but don't do it unless I really AM wrong), the logic is based on a possibly false premise, and certainly an unproven one.

This applies especially to theists.

Most people "believe" in God by one or more of the following methods:

1. They believe someone who tells them that God exists.
   
   This is the same process by which chemists "believe" that carbon has six electrons, or most of us here "believe" that Al Gore received more votes than George Bush in 2000. I also believe that my parents got married because they loved each other. I would be hard put to prove any of these things as facts, although each of them have a high probability of being provably true, especially the one about carbon.
   
   (I'm putting the quotes around "believe" because it is a loaded, often imprecise, term.)



2. They have a direct experience of God, or something they "believe" to be God.



3. They have deduced or inferred the existence of God based on evidence they consider to be reliable.

None of these are illogical or irrational. The believer can use quite rational, logical means to come to his/her belief.

On the contrary, making the argument for one's personal, internal, subjective experience is usually the difficult part, and it's impossible in many cases. But still, that doesn't make experience illogical or irrational. It doesn't necessarily invalidate the conclusion, either.

In fact, by insisting that other people are "just plain wrong", and that "it (religion) is not rational", you have obliged yourself to make (or start) an argument. I take it that you are a strongly committed non-believer. And, you very likely used the same (or similar) method to come to your own position -- reasonably, logically, and without any more delusion than most other people.

I'm amazed that so many self-described rationalists are completely unaware that the personal experience of people who hold ideas they don't agree with can be rational. The explanation appears to be that unless something is amenable to an approach a lawyer might use, then it's some kind of delusion. Yet, philosophy has long been used as a way to examine personal, subjective, idiosyncratic experiences.

There's two side issues that you may want to consider:

1. You may be privileging "reason" and "logic" in idiosyncratic ways. They are quite useful, but you may have overlooked other ways to evaluate ideas. For example, art, music, and language are not products of logic or reason, but they are quite valuable, too.



2. Second, and more to the point, are you sure you're not confusing reality testing with rationality?

Belief in religion may seem utterly insane to you, but to other people, it may be as natural as gravity. Reasons for beliefs vary, and most people probably believe a lot of things based on erroneous logic, even when they arrive at the correct conclusion. But the foundations of proof and disproof of religions and of God are a little different than simple algebras of logic. There may be good arguments to be made, but questioning the rationality of personal experience isn't one of them.

And, consider, most of what any of us believe is partially or wholly incorrect. Learning continues throughout life, and it certainly applies to things which we believe or disbelieve.

--p!

Thanks.

as "agreeing with me". Then all you smart asses are just insane deluded irrational illogical, uh, dummies, right?

So I don't have to read the rest of your post.

Or are you just putting random comments at random points in the thread now? I can't see any connection between your reply and Pigwidgeon's post.

in the intent of the original thread.

The point of the OP is to put religion in a box of "irrational" and "illogical" to better dismiss it as "wrong". However, the box itself is problematic.

"error"

Maybe you are posting in the wrong place.

You are comparing apples and oranges here.

The reason we believe the chemists is that we trust the process by which the scientific community arrives at its conclusions. We understand that many chemists have performed many experiments relating to the number of electrons in a carbon atom. We also understand that any results on this topic have been critically reviewed prior to publication by a number of qualified chemists, all of whom are itching for the opportunity to disprove the theory.

The reason we believe the news (to the degree that we do) is that we know that lots of reporters, as well as election officials, have spent a lot of time looking at hanging chads and counting the votes. Not even the Bush campaign disputed that Gore received more votes overall than Bush, although it would be strongly in their interest to do so.

There are no such controls on the parent or clergyperson who tells a child that God exists. It is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God. Therefore, the assertion that God exists is inherently less reliable than (for example)the assertion that a carbon atom has six electrons.

Would you agree then that it is logical and rational, or would you still dismiss it as irrational simply because it is a religious response rather than a secular one, and may incorporate areas of study that mainstream science has yet to address?

I do not follow anything that lies outside the foundations of scientific thinking as described in Descartes' A Discourse on Method. Yet, as a religious person, I'm willing to entertain some of the more fantastic postulates that that science suggests. Is it lunatic, for example, to think that Einstein may have been inaccurate in his insistence that the speed of light is an unbreakable barrier? If so, then NASA is a lunatic organization, and Richard Chiao in particular is a madman.

Or is it lunatic to view the Universe as a single, incomprehensibly entangled entity in which every separate body affects every other one instantaneously, regardless of distance in time and space, and human perception influences reality? If so, then Heisenberg and Schroedinger were lunatics.

Is it lunatic to suggest that human consciousness may be linked on unconscious levels in such a way that there are common attributes to everyone's interpretation of reality, so that they dream in the exact same set of images? If so, then Jung was an idiot.

Yet every one of these ideas is a religious concept that was first expressed nearly 10,000 years ago by mystical teachers. They appear in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Platonism, Gnosticism, Druidism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism.

"Irrationality" is better defined as the insistence that the Universe must conform to one's solipsistic viewpoint. . . .

then hopefully it would lead to ways of exploring "spirituality" without the need to believe in these ancient superstitions. Probably many of the feelings that people feel when they describe "spiritual" experiences can be explained outside the realm of religion. But to close the eye of reason, and have blind faith in things that don't tolerate the light of examination, as religion has not over the ages, is not a healthy situation.

what exactly is it that one is referring to?

Is it simply an attribution of natural phenomena to the actions of various gods? If so, then I can understand the aversion.

But if one is rejecting ancient philosophies on the basis that some of this attribution has been associated with them, without exploring those philosophies themselves, then I would suggest that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater.

Philosophy involves the quest for knowledge and wisdom, unlike belief in superstition.

I'm not suggesting that we reject ancient philisophies, merely that we examine them under the light of reason, that we don't blindly accept them. The same goes for religion, don't blindly accept ancient religions developed before the age of reason. But most of the world still does. Jefferson says it well without offending the believer or unbeliever.

But keep in mind that many of the teachings we today refer to as "philosophies" were, in their day, religions. Such as Pythagoreanism. In fact, the entire ancient Greek culture is commonly considered to have been Pagan in nature.

So we must be careful in how we approach things. That's all I'm saying. :)

there have been a number of thinkers that have tried to prove their religion thus. I think Maimonides for the jews, Averroes for the muslims, and Aquinas for the christians. Whether it works or not is up to you, but it's clear that they put a huge deal of work into logic and rationality as the basis for belief.

Interesting rejection of rationality


After reading Niebuhr, King recalled becoming more aware of "the depths and strength of sin" and


the complexity of man's social involvement and the glaring reality of collective evil. I realized that liberalism had been all too sentimental concerning human nature and that it leaned toward a false idealism. I also came to see that the superficial optimism of liberalism concerning human nature overlooked the fact that reason is darkened by sin. The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin encourages us to rationalize our actions. liberalism failed to show that reason by itself is little more than an instrument tojustify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=214&topic_id=44963&mesg_id=44963

Hmm, Inland?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=39390&mesg_id=39800

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/additional_resources/articles/gospel.htm

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the African-American Social Gospel

Actually, such a statement is illogical.

There is a great amount of logic behind religion. That much is an undeniable fact. So, YOU are just plain wrong.

Bow down to manic expression. For, He is always right, and you are always wrong.

It is a fact that there is logic behind many beliefs. If someone denies this, they are wrong.

Furthermore, it was the OP who asserted that all others were wrong, so why don't I see you making insipid comments in response to that poster?

Also, try making a post that has some meaning. Or maybe try to make an actual point next time. (Do I ask too much of you?)

...of all that "logic behind many beliefs."

You keep insisting on that point, so it shouldn't be too hard to make your case.

e.g., since everyone keeps using the ancient Greeks as an example: I'd like to see a comparison between the Greek pagan beliefs about the sun, and the claims of the ancient Greek scientist Anaxagoras. Which one was more "logical?"

1. The religious explanation: the sun is pulled thru the sky by Apollo's chariot.
2. Anaxagoras: the sun is a "burning rock."

However, the point is that many religious beliefs have a great amount of logic behind it, not just mine. Even if you disagree with a belief, that does not make it illogical.

I'll link you to a post I've previously made for an argument:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=44370&mesg_id=44498
(those are my views)

By the way, this is coming from someone who believes in the Aryan Invasion Theory? :rofl:

don't dodge it

don't ignore my answer.

If you actually cared to click the link you'd see an argument, but of course you either didn't and posted a mistaken impression or you just ignored what it said. Either way, good job.

Which is more logical???

:eyes:

One thing that I have noticed in my conversations with Christians is that there appears to be a chasm in the conversation of which neither one of us can cross. Because I don't believe in god, naturally they set about challenging my position (which to be fair, I of course respond by challenging their own). But any argument they make where the existence of god is a premise of the argument - and therefore required to accept the conclusion - I have to immediately reject. Likewise, any argument that I make that operates solely within the realm of reality that extends itsself into the supernatural fails as well.
Right now I'm pretty much convinced that it's utterly useless to argue with a Christian (or visa versa) regarding faith or the existence of god because faith and logic simply do not mix. You can't use one to supplant the other.

...but not in the least religious. For me, organized religion is the doom of man and the thing that will kill him off.

As a writer and a musician I believe in the soul--I just have to. From nowhere else does my creative energy come. However, I don't believe in any (what I consider) nonsense about an anthropomorphized God. I believe that there is an energy field that ties all humans together, but it does not need to be worshipped. Just living life in the here, in the now, is "worshipping" this energy. Writing and art, dance and music, all are ways of connecting with this energy and being truly human.

that God exists using the unmovable mover. everything is caused by something except God

My knowledge of greek philosophy is a bit fuzzy, but I think originally that was Aristotle's idea - that of a prime mover. Of course Aristotle wasn't too concerned with proving the idea of a J-C God via "self-evident" truths, merely that there had to some sort of Arke (aka source). Aquinas then took it and put it to his own devices.
Another interesting idea is the idea that there needn't necissarily be a "prime mover", which is an idea postulated by Bertrand Russell. He thought that the only reason that we couldn't comprehend a world that always existed was due to the "poverty of our imaginations".

If everything has a cause, then everything has a cause. (Tautology.) To posit that something in a world of absolute cause-and-effect has no cause is to say that that something does not exist in the world.

And anything that does not exist is irrelevant.

You believe that to be so, as well, since I can guarantee you aren't in the least bit worried about what one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eaters are doing.

something has to start the chain reaction.

Which is the idea that Bertrand Russell advanced. Perhaps the only reason why we understand the world through a billiard ball model of cause and effect is because that's how we can comprehend it. Perhaps everything simply existed, and was not caused or created by anything. Personally I find the idea implausible, but then again I don't have much of an imagination.

perhaps we could just say that the chain reaction was caused by Nothing.