My latest infatuation with logic.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp

Should I bother doing so? Are people actually interested in being open minded and discussing the validity of certain thoughts?

Open mindedness in critical thinking only goes so far. When you ask that outlandish, unverifiable claims be accepted as a given before even beginning discussion, you're setting yourself up for a hellish maelstrom. You have no problem accepting these things as a given since you already accept them in your personal beliefs, but others who do not share your beliefs simply find them unreasonable and without logical backing.

Don't walk into a house of logic and tell us that we need to take unverifiable stated assumptions as a given. We will eat you. Then throw words at you until you give up.

Would I be wrong in saying that most of the posts in this thread have not tried seeing any validity in what has been discussed?

There is no point to attempting to rationalize religion, which is what you were talking about from the beginning. Religion is about having faith in the unverifiable, sometimes even in the face of contrary evidence. To attempt to reason it is to miss the point entirely. I've told you this many times and others have alluded to this as well. If you're going to have faith in something, have faith in it. Talking logic and reason in the area of theology is just ****ing retarded. You won't get anywhere with it. All you'll do is miss the point of faith and get a bunch of atheists pissed off at you.

Again, I want to point you to humanistic atheism, also called secular humanism. Give it a look see. Gives you all the good points that a religion can give you, without unverifiable claims that must be accepted without proof. There is no invisible man in space controlling anything or creating anything, but it still can give your life structure and meaning... except that in fact, it is yourself giving your life structure and meaning. I guess the real point is not to worship some external, invisible, unmeasurable being that easily doesn't even exist, look internally at yourself and decide what is right for yourself.

Basically, it is religion minus the affront to reason. Religion itself is not fundamentally bad, but when it makes a person question reason, when it makes a person do illogical things, when it makes a person use fault logic to uphold their beliefs, it is.

ps squeek is right, you cannot make a thread saying "I love logic and god is logical but dont make this a thread about religion." If you say "god is logical" I will be there to throw words, and you better believe that others like Squeek or Reach will be there to throw good, reasoned arguments at you as well.

[AC1speakerbox]

This thread just sploded my mind.

[windsurfer-sp]

Alright, with some thread formalization out of the way, lets give some more attempts at rebuttals. I would like to start of with Squeaks biblical attacks.

Luke 18:18-30 summary: Sell everything you own. If you don't, you can't get into heaven.
Oh also, you have to follow me (aka be my disciple, you'll see where I'm going with this next).

Originally Posted by Squeek

Luke 14:26 summary: Hate everybody. Hate your parents, hate yourself, etc. Hate everything and everyone. If you don't, you can't be my disciple (and, by proxy, you can't get into Heaven. This couples well with the next one!).

Luke 10:25 summary: Love everybody. Love god, love your neighbors, etc. Love everything and everyone. If you don't, you can't get into Heaven.

Hmm. Jesus is making this hard already. But it gets worse.

Matthew 5:20 summary: Unless you're better than the Pharisees, you can't get into Heaven. Now this is a fun one. Pharisees are always talked about in churches despite the fact that nobody has a damn clue who the hell they are. So, let me just paste their laws.

Lets actually quote the bible as Reach has said, it has hard enough to interpret the bible as it is. Lets try to not summarize things. I do that with my "proofs" and we all know how far that has fallen short.

Luke 18:18-30 "A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"" Then Jesus instructed him to sell everything. That does not need to apply to anyone else.

Jesus later goes on to say "When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

This is called an analogy, as you would never get a camel to enter eye of a needle but he is using it as an illustration not as a black and white rule. If you want I could try and delve even deeper and find the root words that were used to describe the rich man if you are super concerned about it, it seems to be obvious that Jesus is not setting an income limit on heaven entry but more of a heart thing about valuing money more then God.

Where did you get this you have to be a discple thing from? Because I don't see it and it ruins your proxy argument for the next bit.

Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple."
Pretty strong words. The term hate here is a hyperbole meaning to love Jesus more then this his Father, mother etc.... A command I certainly have no problem with, my Mother and Father have let me down where as biblically speaking at least Jesus hasn't.

Luke 10:25-29 "On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself." "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

You raise an interesting point, but it does seem to say "love God as much as you can". God made us, he knows we are not perfect and he knows how much love we can give. I hardly see this as an impossible task. God is a loving God he won't tease you into thinking your doing good enough to then pull the rug out from under you.

Lastly, the Pharisees were compared to brooding vipers by Jesus. (I am really out of time here and will happily fill out this argument later, I do enjoy going through and reading the word.)

[windsurfer-sp]

Squeek, scientific experimentation help us deal with the physical world, why would a relationship with God take away the need for that?

As for your slippery slope point, that to me is close mindedness.

Afro, there is logic associated with faith. Eg. discussing the validity of the four gospels, how historically accurate they are, how the people could believe such claims, why they have spread so far.

I came here and asked if there was anything more then evolution behind our ability to think. People took this elsewhere.

As much as I like the emphasis on positive outcomes of human secularism, to me it looses its power if you are doing things for the sake of hypocritical people (which is all of us).

The fact that atheists get pissed off to me shows a weakness in their arguments, emotion is not a good thing to get in the way of logic. Christians are always blamed for bringing it into a debate but atheists aren't.

I'll keep trying to patiently go through this thread, but if Dev or others decide this has gone on long enough with out enough potential for some good old crit thinking then feel free to lock.

[MrRubix]

The problem is that you're trying to apply logic to a case where your underlying assumptions are without logical basis. Your initial post was about the beauty of logic, and yet you're disregarding certain answers. You don't seem to like answers of "Logic can be enjoyed by humans due to certain evolutionary processes" because then that becomes a religious/evolutionary debate, even though it's answering your question. Or would you prefer "Humans enjoy logic because it's a function of fun problem-solving"? On a practical level, you're going to have a lot of difficulty restricting this thread away from religion as it applies to logic, especially when your religion is specifically tailored such that it rapes logic in the face without even buying it dinner first. It's like you're trying to say "Hey, just assume the possibility that there's a God, and then let's talk logical proofs" when such a claim isn't logical. Logical proofs don't revolve around conclusions that "may be possible," as that would no longer make them proofs.

The fact that atheists get "pissed off" doesn't mean they are letting emotion get in the way of logic, and I'd even argue that we aren't even getting pissed off here. Frustrated, sure. Something that is true will be true, and something false will still be false, no matter what state of mind you're in. The reason behind the frustration is mainly because every time we try to address your question, you either shove it aside as "part of a religious/evolutionary debate" or you simply make claims about logic that are incorrect, or you ignore certain crucial arguments altogether.

[Squeek]

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp

This is called an analogy, as you would never get a camel to enter eye of a needle but he is using it as an illustration not as a black and white rule. If you want I could try and delve even deeper and find the root words that were used to describe the rich man if you are super concerned about it, it seems to be obvious that Jesus is not setting an income limit on heaven entry but more of a heart thing about valuing money more then God.

And this is the only occasion where it's a possible singular mention. However, Jesus later says that all you have to do to get into heaven is to believe in God. Why is this guy different? Because he's successful in life, he has to work even harder to get into heaven? That's not fair!

Using logic, it's much easier to assume that Jesus doesn't know what he's talking about or that he really, really hates rich people.

Where did you get this you have to be a discple thing from? Because I don't see it and it ruins your proxy argument for the next bit.

The whole paragraph above is finished by saying that you have to follow Jesus to get into heaven, which insinuates that you have to be his disciple. That's where the disciple comment comes from.

The term hate here is a hyperbole meaning to love Jesus more then this his Father, mother etc.... A command I certainly have no problem with, my Mother and Father have let me down where as biblically speaking at least Jesus hasn't.

How the hell did you turn hate into love? I would love to have the power to twist dialogue the way Christians can.

You raise an interesting point, but it does seem to say "love God as much as you can". God made us, he knows we are not perfect and he knows how much love we can give. I hardly see this as an impossible task. God is a loving God he won't tease you into thinking your doing good enough to then pull the rug out from under you.

Was not even bothering with the "amount" of love required from this. I'm comparing it to the fact that Jesus JUST SAID to HATE everything. He says you have to hate yourself, but love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Well, if you hate yourself, then you hate your neighbor too.

And how do you know your God is a loving God? Your God killed a bunch of people, man. He killed innocent children. Repeatedly. He told other people to kill people. Repeatedly. I would not call that a loving God.

Lastly, the Pharisees were compared to brooding vipers by Jesus. (I am really out of time here and will happily fill out this argument later, I do enjoy going through and reading the word.)

I would expect this kind of hypocrisy from love/hate Jesus, so this is nothing mind-blowing. Sure, tell everybody to be holier than the Pharisees, then dock the Pharisees for being unholy.

Now let's get to your next post, which is chock-full of goodness!

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp

Squeek, scientific experimentation help us deal with the physical world, why would a relationship with God take away the need for that?

It certainly shouldn't, but you can't deny that it hasn't.

Religion has successfully stopped (at least temporarily): Cosmology (THE EARTH IS THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE), Biology (GOD MADE THE WORLD STOP INVESTIGATING THINGS THAT SHOW OTHERWISE), Stem-cell research (USING UNBORN FETUS MATERIAL THAT WOULD OTHERWISE BE THROWN AWAY THAT CAN CURE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE IS WRONG!), and numerous other scientific advances.

Religion has successfully spread: Disease (CONDOMS ARE BAD!), Misinformation, Bigotry (HOMOSEXUALS ARE GAY), and Sexism, among other things.

As for your slippery slope point, that to me is close mindedness.

Finally something we can agree on. It's very close-minded to just leave everything to faith. But that's what many Christians do.

Afro, there is logic associated with faith. Eg. discussing the validity of the four gospels, how historically accurate they are, how the people could believe such claims, why they have spread so far.

Aaaaaand here's where he and I have a problem. Where's the historical accuracy of the gospels? As far as I know, there is effectively none.

It's very, very interesting to ask why people believe such claims, especially when not a single person outside of the Bible wrote about any of these people! I'm extremely interested in this too! But then again, as they say, never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

I came here and asked if there was anything more then evolution behind our ability to think. People took this elsewhere.

No. You came here saying you found logic in religion. We're here telling you that we doubt that.

The fact that atheists get pissed off to me shows a weakness in their arguments, emotion is not a good thing to get in the way of logic. Christians are always blamed for bringing it into a debate but atheists aren't.

Where are we pissed off? We're trying to reason with you.

And, as they say, the burden of proof lies with the accuser. You are the one telling us there's an invisible space alien governing over our lives. We are saying "That's illogical."

I'll keep trying to patiently go through this thread, but if Dev or others decide this has gone on long enough with out enough potential for some good old crit thinking then feel free to lock.

It's totally on him at this point, since I sure as hell am not going to lock it until I figure out whether any of this has made it beyond your barrier of 'God did it.'

[MrRubix]

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." -The God Delusion, page 31

I always found this passage to be hilarious :P

[windsurfer-sp]

*raises the white flag*

I could keep trying but I'm fighting a loosing fight here.

As always if people have questions on the topic and are generally interested in what I believe then feel free to message me or hit me up on IM. As shown I may not have the answers but try
Forgive the smilies too, there pretty lame.
Forgive me on finishing a CT argument with such "dribble":
If you can fill that emptiness inside of you which I can never fill with anything from this world you are a better man then I.

God Bless: my good intentions from the the man diluted enough to believe in something greater

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp

Afro, there is logic associated with faith. Eg. discussing the validity of the four gospels,

Do you mean the moral validity or what? Theological validity? Just because a lot of the rules of morality taught by a religion are good and reasonable, that does not mean that all teachings of the religion are equally reasoned. For example, not killing people is a good, reasoned rule to live by. It makes perfect sense, all things considered, to say that it is wrong to kill another person. On the other hand, the rule of not eating meat on the sabbath doesn't make sense. Days are an arbitrary device created by man to measure time. Meat is a good part of a normal diet. Even assuming that God truly does exist, me consuming meat on one day has no worse an effect on him than any other day. Yes, I am aware that the rule I am referring to is not one which is generally enforced and unless I'm mistaken stems from the Old Testament anyway, but it's just an example.

how historically accurate they are,

Discussing the historical accuracies that appear in the bible has nothing to do with faith. The very fact that they are historical accuracies makes it about HISTORY, FACT. Faith is only faith when one is expected to believe in things without verifiable proof. That is even why it is called "faith".

And the only reason anything in the bible is recognized as historically accurate is if it is confirmed by secular sources. The bible is not a source of historical accuracies even if does contain a few; a source of historical accuracies would be secular and entirely historically accurate within the ability of the scribe who penned it.

how the people could believe such claims, why they have spread so far.

People believed those things because the world didn't used to be as rational as it is now. People continue to believe them because they're indoctrinated in their youth, and others latch on to it as an escape from what they see as an otherwise worthless existence.

But it doesn't matter if a lot of people believe something, that doesn't mean that it's valid. Everyone used to be certain that the Earth was flat, that everything in the cosmos revolved around it. These ideas lasted for a very long time. That doesn't add any validity to the beliefs. An incorrect idea that's held by many, across generations would still be an incorrect idea, not just in the case of religion, but in ALL things.

As much as I like the emphasis on positive outcomes of human secularism, to me it looses its power if you are doing things for the sake of hypocritical people (which is all of us).

Doing things for the sake of people. What more is there? Either this life has meaning in and of itself or it doesn't. Humanism is about making this life a good one. Hell, did you even look into it far enough to notice that Humanism is something practiced by Christians as well? I'm not 100%, but I'd even guess that more humanists are theists (not only Christians, but all theists) than atheists too.

And if this life means jack squat (as would be indicated by disagreeing with the basic ideals of humanism), then my previous argument about getting on the fastlane to Heaven is valid. The two ideas cannot both be wrong. Either this life has meaning and humanism is a good thing, or this life has no value of its own and the afterlife is all that should be considered as worthwhile.

The fact that atheists get pissed off to me shows a weakness in their arguments, emotion is not a good thing to get in the way of logic. Christians are always blamed for bringing it into a debate but atheists aren't.

I only get pissed off when people claim something based on faith is logical. I don't have a problem with a person having faith in an unverifiable idea that I personally think is unreasonable, I only have a problem when they claim that their beliefs are built on reason (and no, building a house of reason AROUND a seed of unverifiable belief is not the same as being founded in reason).

And as has already been pointed out, YOU brought religion into this. You said your piece about it then immediately turned around and said "ok now no one else can say anything about it." What the ****. No. If you make wild claims they are going to get smacked the **** down.

ps When you're fighting a losing battle, the word "losing" only has one 'O' in it. Normally, I'm not the type to rag on bad spelling, but I noticed you made the same mistake somewhere else as well, so you probably just don't know any better and you seem like the sort of person who would appreciate knowing if you were making a mistake such as this.