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windsurfer-sp 07-4-2009 02:03 PM

My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Ok this post will be part personal story, part Discussion.

Personal side:
I have grown up in Christian house hold and have always held beliefs based on my up bringing. On some level, they always felt right and for the most part have been sure of them.

Over the last few years I have matured a little and my thought process, while never dependant, has become far more independent (in part thanks to posts made on this board etc...).

Anyway lately I went to a Christian book store and picked up a book I have been meaning to grab for a while. "Christian Apologetics". What I found it to contain were a series of logical proofs for many of my beliefs that I have held so dear.

Something that I have come out of it with is a new found appreciation of the incredible beauty of logic. It is so moving and powerful. There is something so exciting about gaining understanding, appreciating things that were once abstract.

The Critical Thinking Side:
Why do we as humans find such a joy and beauty in logic? Can we really ride it off as purely evolutionary? As purely survivalist?
I obviously believe that this side of our being is a gift from God, I believe that we are given an ability to understand so that we can appreciate and take awe in the awesomeness in our creator. How can one with out the ability to think enjoy? How can one with out the ability to think praise and love?

Clarification: I do not want this thread to turn into a religious thread or a creation versus evolution.


I just want a discussion on the joy and beauty in logic. Where it possibly could have came from and why?
Yes we will all come into this with our biases but that what makes this a (rational, calm, respectful…) discussion.

devonin 07-4-2009 08:11 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Well, as a starter: You can't say something like "I've read a bunch of proof for my religious beliefs and isn't that great" and then try telling us that this can't "turn into" a religious thread. It already is one.

To the point now: I've read such a book, namely The handbook of christian apologetics and while it certainly puts forward "proofs" to support a number of the faith-questions of christianity, there's a wide gap between "setting forward a proof" and "proving" that I hope you take the time to really think about.

As for the question about logic. For one, not everybody actually finds beauty and joy in logic. Many people prefer not to think about it. They find that applying logic to something they already find beautiful, basically "takes the fun out of it"

But for those who do enjoy logic, and logical proofs, the main reason I suspect, speaking also from personal experience, is that pleasure can be gained from seeing something just -fit- It shows a sense of understanding about the world and the rules it follows.

Afrobean 07-5-2009 04:52 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3131849)
Anyway lately I went to a Christian book store and picked up a book I have been meaning to grab for a while. "Christian Apologetics". What I found it to contain were a series of logical proofs for many of my beliefs that I have held so dear.

Anything which "proves" religion tends to be logical fallacy. In fact, many of them are classic examples of logical fallacies. If I recall, the wikipedia article about logical fallacies uses many such examples.

If you believe it, you might be able to miss it, but that doesn't mean it's a legitimate proof. It's nothing more than a funny way of looking at a belief which fundamentally shouldn't even be proven.

devonin 07-5-2009 09:57 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Well the process of apologetics rarely goes so far to say that it has -proven- most of the questions it addresses. Mostly what it does is respond to the usual counter-arguments that tend to be brought up. Think of it as a "Handbook for dealing with criticism of the faith"

In a lot of cases, it will make use of historical information, or various types of informal logical argument in support of the points it makes, but the general purpose is to be able to respond reasonably (if not, in everyone's opinion, correctly all the time) to questions and objections.

Afrobean 07-6-2009 06:29 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by devonin (Post 3132939)
Well the process of apologetics rarely goes so far to say that it has -proven- most of the questions it addresses. Mostly what it does is respond to the usual counter-arguments that tend to be brought up. Think of it as a "Handbook for dealing with criticism of the faith"

To criticize faith with logic is to miss the point of faith completely. Faith is inherently illogical, it's to have faith in something in spite of the lack of proof. Faith simply can't hold up to the rigors of science and people on both sides who attempt to do so are annoying.

Quote:

In a lot of cases, it will make use of historical information, or various types of informal logical argument in support of the points it makes, but the general purpose is to be able to respond reasonably (if not, in everyone's opinion, correctly all the time) to questions and objections.
Historical information? Like pointing out how the church had subjugated scientific advancements in the past that are now taken for granted as absolute fact?

Informal logical arguments? You mean like THIS BANANA. LOOK AT THIS BANANA AND SEE HOW IT FITS MY HAND PERFECTLY. THERE IS NO WAY THIS COULD HAVE HAPPENED UNLESS GOD CREATED IT THIS WAY... I wouldn't call that sort of thing logical at all, although the word "informal" sure fits that sort of argument.

And again, there is no way to respond reasonably to logical criticisms of faith. The only reasoned response to such criticisms is to say "You are right. It is not logical. That's why it's faith, I have faith in my beliefs even though there is no proof of it."

devonin 07-6-2009 07:14 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Historical information? Like pointing out how the church had subjugated scientific advancements in the past that are now taken for granted as absolute fact?
No, historical information like historical evidence that various events described in the bible actually happened.

Quote:

Informal logical arguments? You mean like THIS BANANA. LOOK AT THIS BANANA AND SEE HOW IT FITS MY HAND PERFECTLY. THERE IS NO WAY THIS COULD HAVE HAPPENED UNLESS GOD CREATED IT THIS WAY... I wouldn't call that sort of thing logical at all, although the word "informal" sure fits that sort of argument.
No, formal logic and informal logic are different categories of logical argumentation. You should read up on them before you dismiss them. Generally speaking 95% of the debating that happens in this forum is informal logic. If you go read my sticky about logical fallacies, the majority of them are fallacies of informal logic rather than formal.

You're treating "informal logic" in the same way that you criticize the religious for using "scientific theory"

Afrobean 07-6-2009 08:14 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by devonin (Post 3134485)
No, historical information like historical evidence that various events described in the bible actually happened.

But proving that a single element of the bible is factual doesn't mean anything. If I say on September 11th, 2001 the World Trade Center towers were hit by X-wing starfighters and were destroyed, the fact that certain parts of the story are factual do not mean that any other part of it has any basis in reality. You can't say "secular evidence suggests that the man called Jesus of Nazareth of the Christian bible was a real person", then use that to support a "reasoned" argument that he healed lepers using magical deity powers.

Pointing at historical events that don't require one to believe them on faith don't do anything to "legitimize" beliefs which DO require faith.
Quote:

No, formal logic and informal logic are different categories of logical argumentation. You should read up on them before you dismiss them. Generally speaking 95% of the debating that happens in this forum is informal logic. If you go read my sticky about logical fallacies, the majority of them are fallacies of informal logic rather than formal.

You're treating "informal logic" in the same way that you criticize the religious for using "scientific theory"
yeah whatever bro i still say that banana **** is ridiculous and i will point out the ridiculousness of it in any opportunity i get

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 08:39 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Afrobean (Post 3134474)
Faith simply can't hold up to the rigors of science and people on both sides who attempt to do so are annoying.

Science can only test the materialistic side of things. Therefore any claim that faith makes on non materialistic things can not be touched by science. So your belief that faith can't hold up to the rigors of science to me is wrong.

Quote:

And again, there is no way to respond reasonably to logical criticisms of faith. The only reasoned response to such criticisms is to say "You are right. It is not logical. That's why it's faith, I have faith in my beliefs even though there is no proof of it."
Faith is far too broad of a term. Faith can mean a faith in anything. The only side of faith I can personally speak for is the Christian faith. And as far as I am concerned most of what I believe can be logically backed up to some degree.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 08:42 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Afrobean (Post 3134499)
Pointing at historical events that don't require one to believe them on faith don't do anything to "legitimize" beliefs which DO require faith.

Obviously not, but it certainly helps when you know the person you believe to be God to have actually walked on the Earth.

Afrobean 07-6-2009 09:07 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134505)
Science can only test the materialistic side of things. Therefore any claim that faith makes on non materialistic things can not be touched by science. So your belief that faith can't hold up to the rigors of science to me is wrong.

It's not a belief that I hold that religion cannot hold up to the rigors of science. It's a fact. Things which are taken on faith are taken on faith BECAUSE the either cannot be tested using the scientific method or because they are effectively disproven using the scientific method.

It's not like I'm sitting here saying "my belief is better than your belief." I'm just pointing out that your belief is unverifiable, and that frankly, that's the point of it being a belief rather than fact, faith rather than reason, religion rather than science.

Quote:

And as far as I am concerned most of what I believe can be logically backed up to some degree.
No, you probably only feel this way because you don't want to think that you believe in something which is illogical. But it's not even "illogical", it's "alogical" (I know it's not a word, just relax). It's aside from logic. It's not that logic is withheld or absent from it, because it was not there in the first place, nor is it necessary or intended. Faith is something that exists apart from logic. Attempting to make your religious beliefs appear to be logical conclusions belittles your own value of reasoned existence by employing faulty reason and also belittles your own power of faith. If you have faith in something, have faith in it, don't try to act like it's a logical conclusion and CERTAINLY don't try to explain to other people how logical your beliefs are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134507)
Obviously not, but it certainly helps when you know the person you believe to be God to have actually walked on the Earth.

Does it matter? If you already had faith that the man was the physical embodiment of your deity of choice, you ALREADY BELIEVED HE EXISTED. Factual evidence of him existing shouldn't affect ANYTHING, because your beliefs should have already dictated that the man did exist.

If you need the "help" of knowing that Jesus was a real man in history, then what the **** are you doing in believing the more outlandish stories of the bible? If you can't even functionally have faith that the guy actually existed, what the ****.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 10:04 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
a) You believe that a man was God who historically walked on the Earth.
b) You believe that a man was God who historically is unknown.

If you are a rational person who wants to logically believe things he knows by faith then which would you choose?
If you wanted to share your beliefs as more logically believable which would you choose?
There is a huge difference.

Also science and logic aren't one and the same. Logic deals with things that rationally make sense. Science deals with data that is interpretable.

Things in Science are logical, thats the less abstract side of logic. But there is also a side to logic that is not scientific as it is not dealing with materialistic data.

Im arguing this case here as you seem to think that anything outside of science is illogical. You seem to be trying to reject any case for logic in anything faith based.

You seem to see faith as the ability to shut ones mind off from reason. Where as I believe that faith is only enhanced with logic.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 10:29 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Sure, heres a very basic and badly written cause:

Everything in the universe has to have a cause. If we follow back from now to the very original causes of what we have today, we know logically there has to be some initial cause. Therefore by definition God is the initial cause of the universe.

So you could say something had to put that initial "atom" that the universe originally was in place in place. According to the big bang theory.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 10:32 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_apologetics

To be honest hardly understood much more then the intro of this wiki, but this is a good outline of the formal name given to the logical thinking of faith.

If you really believe that you are open minded about the world go out and try to grab a book of Christian Apologetics. They logically go through and try to prove things through logic, not through bible bashing or what have you. They simply start off with a belief of nothing and logically work there way through to Christian belief. (Yes that means most of this is not simply stating the bible and ignoring all else, including going through and logically looking at the beliefs of other religions.)

There is so much crap out there on the net, that I really can't recommend anything on the net off the top of my head. Honestly searching for good Christian material on the web is really hard. Look up Christianity's views on sex in google and read articles of how it is "Biblically advisable to only have anal sex before marriage".

Squeek 07-6-2009 10:41 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134567)
Sure, heres a very basic and badly written cause:

Everything in the universe has to have a cause. If we follow back from now to the very original causes of what we have today, we know logically there has to be some initial cause. Therefore by definition God is the initial cause of the universe.

So you could say something had to put that initial "atom" that the universe originally was in place in place. According to the big bang theory.

Well, then you're not going back far enough.

If your God made the Universe, then what made your God?

If you listen to science at all, you understand that trying to discern the starting point of the Big Bang is absurd, because that's also the point at which time began. There was nothing before the Big Bang.

If that's not good enough, please read up on Quantum Physics and how it avoids troublesome matters such as cause and effect, because it will answer your question with a far more logical answer than 'we don't know so god did it'. In Quantum Physics, things just happen. There's no rhyme or reason as to why they happen. These causeless happenings are demonstrable and proven.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 11:09 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
By definition God always is, if God made our universe including time then he does not need a beginning nor an end. Therefore if God has no beginning nor end then he is not created. (Notice no science was needed here, just logic.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument - Check out the objections and their further counter arguments.

Reach 07-6-2009 11:21 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134567)
Sure, heres a very basic and badly written cause:

Everything in the universe has to have a cause. If we follow back from now to the very original causes of what we have today, we know logically there has to be some initial cause. Therefore by definition God is the initial cause of the universe.

So you could say something had to put that initial "atom" that the universe originally was in place in place. According to the big bang theory.

I'll stick to the rules here and not turn this into a religion thread or a evolution thread, but there's a good basis for discussion here if people stay on track, so I'll comment on this.

Everything in the universe being causally linked is a fair argument to make. Mentally, it might not be entirely correct on the quantum level of the universe, but either way I think there are ample reasons to argue this is in fact the case - everything in our universe has a cause.

So, there would have to be an initial cause. There would have to exist some irreducibly complex portion of reality that 1. If reduced further would result in nothing or 2. Would result in the inability to cause anything.

However, jumping out and saying "Therefore, God" is a bit of an odd conclusion. The 'cause' could be one of many different things. Does that mean God is an ambiguous concept - a filler word used to describe what we don't know? In that case I won't disagree with you.


Scientifically, it's quite clear that the initial 'cause' within our universe was the Big Bang. The big bang was not an initial atom per say - there was no real mass in the original universe. Rather, it was only energy, and the big bang was a rapid expansion of that energy which therein created space and time, and thus space-time. All matter was subsequently created from the big bang (An easy way to understand this is through E=MC^2 - Energy is mass, but manifested differently...they are equivalents but not manifestly the same thing, so they can be exchanged).


So, God put the initial cause of the Big Bang into place? That still doesn't tell me what God is. God could be quantum mechanics under this ambiguous definition. Along the lines of what Squeek said, if there was an initial system, it would have by definition some energy associated with it, and also by definition this energy would be subject to indeterminate subtle changes or fluctuations on the quantum level. These fluctuations would happen infinitely in number, all simultaneously in the absence of time to differentiate between quantum events, and if one of these vaccuum fluctuations was large enough, in theory it could cause the energy around it to rush in opposite directions.

And thus we have the Big Bang.

So, in conclusion - I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, I just think your argument is empty and unspecific. God could be anything in your argument. It's a classic 'God of the Gaps' argument, where God is some undefined process or thing that explains what we currently cannot explain.

Quote:

By definition God always is, if God made our universe including time then he does not need a beginning nor an end. Therefore if God has no beginning nor end then he is not created. (Notice no science was needed here, just logic.)
Again, my problem with this is that our definition of God is ambiguous and unspecific. If God is not created he could be anything, such as energy itself (From Thermodynamics), and thus I see no reason to refer to it as God (Just call it the First Law of Thermodynamics, or Energy). He could also be Quantum mechanisms, other various laws or theories, or something we currently don't understand.

None of this has *anything* to do with Christianity...and thus my objections. If you want to start talking about Quantum Christianity I suggest you just start studying science instead of ripping off facts from science and twisting them to fit a preconceived world view :P

Afrobean 07-6-2009 11:34 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134567)
Sure, heres a very basic and badly written cause:

Everything in the universe has to have a cause. If we follow back from now to the very original causes of what we have today, we know logically there has to be some initial cause. Therefore by definition God is the initial cause of the universe.

So you could say something had to put that initial "atom" that the universe originally was in place in place. According to the big bang theory.

That's not a logical support of ANYTHING based in religion.

All you are doing is saying "there was something before the Big Bang" and "I believe that something is God". There is no evidence suggesting your conclusion, but your own existing beliefs build the conclusion for you. You know that what came before the Big Bang is unknown and you believe in god, so you draw the conclusion that it was God. If it was logical, it would not be built upon a belief without evidence.

Basically, if the idea of God never existed, the idea would never even enter the equation here. No one would be trying to think of what came before the Big Bang and say "I know! A supernatural being who is omnipresent, omnipotent, all-knowing, and invisible did it!" If the concept of God had never been invented that would be looked at as an absurd explanation of what caused the Big Bang. Reason? There is no evidence to point to that being the cause.

Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134569)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_apologetics

To be honest hardly understood much more then the intro of this wiki, but this is a good outline of the formal name given to the logical thinking of faith.

If you really believe that you are open minded about the world go out and try to grab a book of Christian Apologetics. They logically go through and try to prove things through logic, not through bible bashing or what have you. They simply start off with a belief of nothing and logically work there way through to Christian belief. (Yes that means most of this is not simply stating the bible and ignoring all else, including going through and logically looking at the beliefs of other religions.)

If their ending point is still completely in line with Christianity, then this would be an example of them starting at the finish and working backward. Sort of what you did with the Big Bang example. You're taking the thing you already believe to be true and working backwards to get to it.

And I'm not even going to bother looking at the thing you pointed to because I don't feel like facepalming at all the stupid crap they put forth that they use to try to prove that a man is a god, even though he's been dead for thousands of years, they've never met him or met anyone who has met him, and they've only read about in a mostly anonymously scribed book that was written hundreds of years after the guy was already dead. I'm annoyed enough by the pseudoscience I've seen from people trying to prove a banana HAD TO HAVE BEEN INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED to fit in a human's hand. There's no way the banana could have coincidentally formed in that size and there is absolutely no way that the plant could have evolved that trait after an extended period of time wherein natural selection would have made the fruit grow at a size where more animals would be more likely to eat the fruit.

It really does sound that you have a problem with simply taking things on faith even though that is the point of religion, and if that is the case, religion is probably not for you. Maybe you should have a look at humanistic atheism. That'll give you all the great things religion can without expecting you to believe things which are unverifiable. And best of all, you won't look silly trying to prove to atheists how logical you are being in your unverifiable beliefs.

ps
Quote:

By definition God always is, if God made our universe including time then he does not need a beginning nor an end. Therefore if God has no beginning nor end then he is not created. (Notice no science was needed here, just logic.)
No, that's not logical, because your taking a leap of faith at the very beginning without saying so. You're assuming God is a real thing without evidence suggesting it, then you're using that assumption to build upon into something else. You are taking God as a given; that is simply not the case.

pps hi rech ur rly smart

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 11:44 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Reach (Post 3134613)
None of this has *anything* to do with Christianity...and thus my objections. If you want to start talking about Quantum Christianity suggest you just start studying science instead of ripping off facts from science and twisting them to fit a preconceived world view :P

Not at all, but logically this means there has to be some sort of something that created the universe. This is just one of many foundations of which are very necessary to logically explain Christianity.

I can't go through them all, but a book of apologetics can. This was just an example to show how logic can be outside science. And its great to start off with the fact that there is something outside of materialism to kill off this Science word contradicting faith.

Now to start with Afro's post....

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 11:51 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Afro, alot of your post seems to be rather close minded and an attack at religion in general and an attack at my credibility and the credibility of what is at hand. I don't see why this argument has to be personal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Afrobean (Post 3134623)
No, that's not logical, because your taking a leap of faith at the very beginning without saying so. You're assuming God is a real thing without evidence suggesting it, then you're using that assumption to build upon into something else. You are taking God as a given; that is simply not the case.

That quote you have taken there was after the proof of causality, the proof that the universe and time need a beginning, from there I expanded on the idea that if something created time, the creator of time can not be part of time and thus can't be created.

Read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument. It's just simple logical look at the need for there to be something outside of the universe. You don't need to tie it to Christianity.

Reach 07-6-2009 11:56 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134633)
Not at all, but logically this means there has to be some sort of something that created the universe. This is just one of many foundations of which are very necessary to logically explain Christianity.

I can't go through them all, but a book of apologetics can. This was just an example to show how logic can be outside science. And its great to start off with the fact that there is something outside of materialism to kill off this Science word contradicting faith.

Now to start with Afro's post....

Right, some sort of something. I agree. Still, my point remains - you nor I know what that is, and there are *MANY* different options here.

I've read all of this material, and the vast majority of books and arguments on these topics before. It was an obsession of mine for years when I was a Christian. I understand where you're coming from.

I think the problem here is this: If you wanted to objectively show that Christianity was the one and only universally true world view, you've got a hell of a lot more problems then simply dealing with the origin of the universe. Even if you could objectively show the prime mover in the origin of all creation was something equivalent of a mind with processes differentiating it from simple laws of mechanics, this has very little connection with Christianity. The entire foundation of Christianity is based on Jesus and his teachings and the LORD and the word he has laid out for mankind through his son - most of which is contained in the bible (NT, since Christianity shares the OT or Torah with Judaism).

And you're going to run into problem, after problem, after problem trying to logically demonstrate any of this as being literally true. Metaphorically or allegorically true, sure, you could argue that creation is allegorically true, but how that relates to reality remains ambiguous and unexplained. You'll run yourself into circles forever.


Anyway, I don't want to get too into specifics here, since this isn't a religious discussion per say, but all of my points made from the previous post stand.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 12:14 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
I get what you are saying until you started on the foundation of Christianity.

What will I have problems explaining as literally true? Creation is one of the few examples I can understand your point of view. I mean creation to me is defiantly a grey area. Personally I black and white I can logically know that God literally created the universe. I have trouble trying to discern how much of Genesis is literal. However I do feel that the main point of Genesis is not lost to much on the literal meaning.

Afrobean 07-6-2009 12:55 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134645)
Afro, alot of your post seems to be rather close minded and an attack at religion in general and an attack at my credibility and the credibility of what is at hand. I don't see why this argument has to be personal.

I'm not attacking religion at all. All I've said is that it's based on faith rather than logic and to attempt a logic argument in favor of OR AGAINST is to entirely miss the point of religion.

If you interpret that as an attack, then I submit that you do not understand your faith or the difference between the function of faith and the function of reason. If you see me calling creationism psuedoscience as an attack on religion, you really don't get it.

The closest thing to an attack against religion was when I tried to point you to humanistic atheism. But I was being totally sincere. You seem to desire something out of religion but still want to adhere to logic and reason. That would allow you to do so and would also not leave you in a position such as this, trying to claim how reasoned your position is when the fact is that all that you argue for is based on a foundation of unverifiable faith. Build logic around it all you want, but it all starts with faith in the unverifiable.

Quote:

That quote you have taken there was after the proof of causality, the proof that the universe and time need a beginning, from there I expanded on the idea that if something created time, the creator of time can not be part of time and thus can't be created.

Read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument. It's just simple logical look at the need for there to be something outside of the universe. You don't need to tie it to Christianity.
My point still stands that you're taking God as a given. By taking that as a given, you're starting with a leap of faith and attempting to build logic around it. That's not bad in and of itself, but to claim that the entire thing is logical for that is wrong. You started with a seed of faith, but you overlooked that somewhere along the way.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 01:14 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Afrobean (Post 3134708)
I'm not attacking religion at all. All I've said is that it's based on faith rather than logic and to attempt a logic argument in favor of OR AGAINST is to entirely miss the point of religion.

If you interpret that as an attack, then I submit that you do not understand your faith or the difference between the function of faith and the function of reason. If you see me calling creationism psuedoscience as an attack on religion, you really don't get it.

Sorry, I obviously generalized your post quite a bit. But it did feel more ranty then logical. I may have been wrong.

How is trying to think about faith logically against religion? I think logic is incredibly important to religion. How can I fully engage in a relationship with a God that I do not logically understand? Dosn't a belief with logic behind it mean so much more then an empty belief?

Obviously belief in a faith can not come purely from logic, but in no way do I believe that true faith should be illogical.

My original topic of discussion was the idea that we are created with the ability to comprehend logic for a reason. I wanted to hear what you guys think of that notion. I am curious if you see the ability to discern logic as just evolutionary.

Reach 07-6-2009 01:18 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134681)
I get what you are saying until you started on the foundation of Christianity.

What will I have problems explaining as literally true? Creation is one of the few examples I can understand your point of view. I mean creation to me is defiantly a grey area. Personally I black and white I can logically know that God literally created the universe. I have trouble trying to discern how much of Genesis is literal. However I do feel that the main point of Genesis is not lost to much on the literal meaning.

Creation was just one example, but you're going to have problems with any part of the bible. Given this isn't a religious discussion, I don't want to get into specifics, but I will reiterate my argument in a slightly different way: There are certain defining features of Christianity, obviously. They are necessary in order to differentiate between Christianity and other religions, and therefore they would *necessarily* need to be true if you wanted to demonstrate it was a universally true world view.

The problem is you can show almost nothing in the bible to be empirically true. The original Hebrew texts have been translated and re-translated numerous times, so to begin with it's hard to even identify what pieces of scripture could be considered the word of God and which are man made manipulations. Not all of the original Hebrew is understood to begin with.

Also, there is no way to differentiate between which parts of the bible are allegorical and which parts are literal. The only way you'd be able to demonstrate anything would be to take a literal interpretation of the ENTIRE bible, but obviously you can't do that because you can empirically demonstrate numerous claims in the bible to be false, so if it were true it can't be literal.

And thus begins the endless circle I described. The very reason people continue to debate this issue. There is no way of demonstrating Christianity to be correct and attempting to do so leads to problem after problem.


That's not to say we can't continue to deepen our understanding of the universe around us, whether it be through an entirely scientific perspective or a theological one. I know for me personally, it is the understanding of the universe and the truth it contains that is important to me, not which criteria this truth happens to meet.

Afrobean 07-6-2009 01:36 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134722)
Sorry, I obviously generalized your post quite a bit. But it did feel more ranty then logical. I may have been wrong.

How is trying to think about faith logically against religion? I think logic is incredibly important to religion. How can I fully engage in a relationship with a God that I do not logically understand?

Because by definition, he is beyond our understanding.

Quote:

Dosn't a belief with logic behind it mean so much more then an empty belief?
No, but propping logic around a belief doesn't suddenly make the whole thing logical. It's still a belief that you hold for reasons of faith, just you have it surrounded by the best reason you can come up with.

Quote:

Obviously belief in a faith can not come purely from logic, but in no way do I believe that true faith should be illogical.
If a person believed something which was WHOLLY illogical, I'll admit that that would be a problem, but sadly, from where I'm sitting, many beliefs held by many religious fools ARE wholly illogical. Not lumping you in there by any means, I'm really thinking of the sort of people who refuse science in favor of **** that makes no sense. The sort of person who considers creationism as legitimate science.

Quote:

My original topic of discussion was the idea that we are created with the ability to comprehend logic for a reason. I wanted to hear what you guys think of that notion. I am curious if you see the ability to discern logic as just evolutionary.
Logic is just an abstract ability our brains "accidentally" developed. The smarter of our species kept multiplying while the stupider died. In time, that led to increased intelligence and the abstract understanding that came with that led on to become the entire nature of humanity. Language, mathematics, recorded history, and logic. Really just accidents, sort of. Natural selection made us smarter and we used that smartness to create something external.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 01:41 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Reach (Post 3134728)
The problem is you can show almost nothing in the bible to be empirically true. The original Hebrew texts have been translated and re-translated numerous times, so to begin with it's hard to even identify what pieces of scripture could be considered the word of God and which are man made manipulations. Not all of the original Hebrew is understood to begin with.

Cool, I get where you are coming from for sure. You have to admit though the difference between materialism and an idea that there is potentially so much more then that does make the ideals of Christianity so much more obtainable. (Which im sure you do).

As for the old testament original texts I know not all that much. The new testament though is incredibly hard to refute from an authenticity of sources point of view and is incredibly easy to understand.

Quote:

Also, there is no way to differentiate between which parts of the bible are allegorical and which parts are literal. The only way you'd be able to demonstrate anything would be to take a literal interpretation of the ENTIRE bible, but obviously you can't do that because you can empirically demonstrate numerous claims in the bible to be false, so if it were true it can't be literal.
There are proper ways to read the bible. Most importantly to look at the context and intent of the author. If some sections of the bible are harder to interpret in a black and white fashion then I hardly see how that will matter in the scheme of what you should already believe from the black and white bits.

The only real problem I can see is where the Bible claims an empirically measurable fact as a belief and is wrong. I mean the bible describes the Earth as flat, but it in no way was claiming to be correct about it, it is just a consequence of it being written in a certain context.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 01:51 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Afrobean (Post 3134739)
Because by definition, he is beyond our understanding.

A higher being can meet a lower being where they are. Im talking about a lower being having the capacity to have far better relationship with logic then without.

Quote:

No, but propping logic around a belief doesn't suddenly make the whole thing logical. It's still a belief that you hold for reasons of faith, just you have it surrounded by the best reason you can come up with.
Logic is logic though? If logic propped up around a belief is illogical then you can attack the logic and the person is left with an illogical belief. If the person has a logical belief that holds up to the rigor of logic then surely that belief is logical?




Quote:

Logic is just an abstract ability our brains "accidentally" developed. The smarter of our species kept multiplying while the stupider died. In time, that led to increased intelligence and the abstract understanding that came with that led on to become the entire nature of humanity. Language, mathematics, recorded history, and logic. Really just accidents, sort of. Natural selection made us smarter and we used that smartness to create something external.
How does the ability to comprehend the beauty of art honestly help natural selection?

Also if our logic is accidental how can we believe what we obtain from the logic to be true? Therefore a belief in accidental logic is illogical.

MrRubix 07-6-2009 01:57 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
"Why do we as humans find such a joy and beauty in logic? Can we really ride it off as purely evolutionary? As purely survivalist?
I obviously believe that this side of our being is a gift from God, I believe that we are given an ability to understand so that we can appreciate and take awe in the awesomeness in our creator. How can one with out the ability to think enjoy? How can one with out the ability to think praise and love?"

Sure, I can ride it off as evolutionary, why not? I like logic because it's another form of problemsolving, to me, that aims to unveil truth and understanding about various things in our world. You need to be careful though when it comes to proofs, since it's easy to fall into the trap of using assumptions we don't necessarily know to be valid/true/sound/whatever.

I'll just add though that just because we are able to think/appreciate/understand/enjoy things, it does not mean it had a purpose or that it was with the intention of "seeing the awesomeness of our creator." I can just as easily argue that they're all the results of physical/evolutionary processes and necessary conditions, and with plenty of evidence.

Be waaaryyyy of the loooggggiiiccc

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 02:06 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Rubix, I put the question out there and a potential answer. I never said I was right. Im wanting to see your "arguments that they're all the results of physical/evolutionary processes and necessary conditions, and with plenty of evidence."

It honestly dosn't strike anyone that as far as we empirically know we are the only ones in the universe who have a sense of beuaty? We are the only ones who find delight in pondering about how our universe works? Where we came from and why? Making fun of Creationists....errr, opps.

Does anyone want to show me how pretty paintings have helped our survival?

Ice wolf 07-6-2009 02:19 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
@OP: Because being logical is better than being illogical. There's really no critical thinking involved here...

MrRubix 07-6-2009 02:28 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
You're looking too much into end-case specifics and disregarding them as purely survival and therefore unreasonable. Anything can be argued or broken down into evolutionary subcomponents from what I can tell. There can still be advantageous OR adverse side functions to a given evolutionary trait, and as long as they don't have any direct impact on the evolutionary process itself, there's no reason for them to change. In this case, an appreciation for art.

For example, why do humans sense beauty in the first place? What things tend to be beautiful, and what things tend to make us turn away? I would argue that it could be entirely linked to evolution. We tend to see beauty in vitality, in good health, happiness, etc. We can look at a lush forest and see "beauty" because we know that such forests are full of life and good health. Good for survival? Of course.

We see "beauty" in certain humans when they appear to be "prettier," where "pretty" tends to be a combination of things that indicate the presence of genetically-favorable, healthier traits. Survival trait? Sure.

We see "beauty" in problem-solving when we gain understanding of things around us, which can be a function of evolution, as intelligent beings are better equipped to survive than non-intelligent beings given a certain environment (as is the case in all evolution). Survival trait? Yes.

So we can derive this notion of "beauty" from many evolutionary factors, since we tend to find favorable notions beautiful and unfavorable notions not as beautiful or even ugly by comparison. So, we have these preferences/affinities/inclinations for various things, and art can be seen as an "outlet." It's not strictly the notion that "we evolved to like pretty paintings which helped us survive," but rather that the paintings are pretty because we've evolved to find certain attributes beautiful, and a painting is a good way for us to relay that beauty.

MrRubix 07-6-2009 02:32 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Blah I want to edit that post to improve the eloquence but I tend to get lazy and type things very stream-of-consciousness style without really caring about how I've structured it. I hope you understand what points I'm trying to relay, here.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 02:43 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Yeap, I can completely agree with that. While it dosn't disprove a higher cause for beauty it certain weakens its argument for it.

Damn it, im trying to find some form of a counter example where a sense of beuaty dosn't help survival. Perhaps the beauty of contemplating the vastness of the universe isn't really survivalist. I guess even inner beauty can be seen as a genetically favorable.

I might sleep on this one and see if I can help myself out here. The best argument I can see here is that if beauty is a form of survival then it will point back to the one who created survival. It feels like a pretty secondary argument though.

Edit: haha, MUSIC! what is survivalist about music? Does music really lead itself to the wanting of desirable evolutionary traits?

MrRubix 07-6-2009 02:45 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
"God" is something we can't disprove, especially when most people use "God" as something to explain what we don't know. Unless we somehow knew everything there is to know about our universe/origin/etc, there will always be this notion of a "God" that could "potentially be behind everything." But, like Reach said, what exactly, then, are you calling "God," and why even call it that?

Reach 07-6-2009 02:46 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

The only real problem I can see is where the Bible claims an empirically measurable fact as a belief and is wrong. I mean the bible describes the Earth as flat, but it in no way was claiming to be correct about it, it is just a consequence of it being written in a certain context.
Herein lies again one of the points I am making. Indeed, I won't disagree with you, but what this does lead us to is a theological model which cannot be verified and also cannot be falsified. It's also a great example of hindsight bias.

For example, there is no 'a priori' way of knowing if the bible was being literal about the Earth being flat. The only way to see whether or not this is true is to...well, figure out if the Earth is flat or not. Of course it isn't, so then it becomes IN HINDSIGHT glaringly obvious that it was written in the bible as a reflection of the times, in context etc. However, prior to this knowledge you have no sound way of demonstrating which parts can be taken seriously and which ones cannot.


You can say what you want about the intent of the author, and this is true to some extent, but it doesn't change what I just said on a more general level. There is still no way to demonstrate anything faith based in this context.


Also, since you bring up the New Testament and describe it as easily understood (Which is, I suppose true compared to the OT), I present to you these passages:

James 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

Matthew 4:4 Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

And again in the OT: Deuteronomy 4:2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.


So, how do you deal with passages like these? It's quite clear they lead to numerous contradictions, which bring us back to exactly the points I was trying to make - Religion is a system that is set up such that you cannot demonstrate it is true nor falsify it.


Quote:

Does anyone want to show me how pretty paintings have helped our survival?
I won't get into this in too much detail, since it could entail an entire thread of its own, but I will comment.

You're taking something very complex and offering, what appears to be a simplistic explanation for it that you do understand because you personally cannot find any other explanations as to why this could be.

If you study evolutionary psychology you will find numerous examples of things that are byproducts or consequences of other developments, and thus they help our survival in an indirect way. This would be one of them, stemming primarily from cultural development.

I could write an entire essay on this, but I won't. I suggest you research it on your own. However, appreciation of beauty and the appearance of beauty stems from both our genes and cultural development, and their intricate interactions from the time we are born. Our genes prime us to find certain things attractive, and our cultures shape and transform this into its ultimate form.

If you want to know where these innate predispositions come from and the development of our culture, you'll want to look towards evolutionary psychology.


Quote:

haha, MUSIC! what is survivalist about music? Does music really lead itself to the wanting of desirable evolutionary traits?
There is a great deal of evidence to suggest it is a byproduct of language, which should obviously present to you numerous survivalist traits. Again, this is an example of something with many utilities that branch out from one another.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 02:55 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Reach how do those scriptures contradict? Call me slow but I have read them before and I feel as if I understand there meanings fairly well but I hardly see the contradiction...

As for the evolutionary psychology I defiantly can see how that would work. Rubix sort of touched on it but I can see there is even more to it.

Quote:

Religion is a system that is set up such that you cannot demonstrate it is true nor falsify it.
If you can go through and show the illogically of what the religion preaches, the fruit of the religion then I don't see how it is too hard to discern either way. Judge things by their fruits. Judge the validity of what the religion says.

I can see what you are saying. [Generic statement without a given basis] But logically looking through some of the evidence for and against the major religions of the world and Christianity certainly stands up to the test. [/] But religion will never be agreed on by logic alone.

Flaming_Dingleberry 07-6-2009 03:05 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3131849)
Ok this post will be part personal story, part Discussion.

Personal side:
I have grown up in Christian house hold and have always held beliefs based on my up bringing. On some level, they always felt right and for the most part have been sure of them.

Over the last few years I have matured a little and my thought process, while never dependant, has become far more independent (in part thanks to posts made on this board etc...).

Anyway lately I went to a Christian book store and picked up a book I have been meaning to grab for a while. "Christian Apologetics". What I found it to contain were a series of logical proofs for many of my beliefs that I have held so dear.

Something that I have come out of it with is a new found appreciation of the incredible beauty of logic. It is so moving and powerful. There is something so exciting about gaining understanding, appreciating things that were once abstract.

The Critical Thinking Side:
Why do we as humans find such a joy and beauty in logic? Can we really ride it off as purely evolutionary? As purely survivalist?
I obviously believe that this side of our being is a gift from God, I believe that we are given an ability to understand so that we can appreciate and take awe in the awesomeness in our creator. How can one with out the ability to think enjoy? How can one with out the ability to think praise and love?

Clarification: I do not want this thread to turn into a religious thread or a creation versus evolution.


I just want a discussion on the joy and beauty in logic. Where it possibly could have came from and why?
Yes we will all come into this with our biases but that what makes this a (rational, calm, respectful…) discussion.

To discuss the joy and beauty in logic, I believe it is beautiful and joyous. I believe it came from generation upon generation of human existence, and why I believe so is hopefully somewhat interesting.
At one point, human's discovered ways to communicate with each other. At the time, language probably helped with creating strategies for hunting and whatnot. As time goes by, Ben Franklin discovers electricity and through the "magic" of language, he informs us what, why, and how to use this awesome discovery. Nowadays, every time a human discovers something, it is immediately sent through the earth's proverbial circulatory system of human brains, and through the many discoveries and inventions of man, we have evolved into a species where as long as one human learns something, all humans learn it. When a baby is born in the year 2010, he will be born into a world that contains all the knowledge that has ever been developed by any person that was born before him.

I'll try to be the only one to use this thread the way you wanted it to be used, rather than go off on how illogical many of your beliefs are, even though that is what I believe.

I will say this one thing though: how is it logical to understand that "God always was" and not think beyond that? It's logical to say the Big Bang couldn't have happened on its own, because there is always a catalyst for everything; however you read that God has always existed, therefore he's an exception... I need a little help with that one.

windsurfer-sp 07-6-2009 03:09 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Flaming_Dingleberry (Post 3134818)
I will say this one thing though: how is it logical to understand that "God always was" and not think beyond that? It's logical to say the Big Bang couldn't have happened on its own, because there is always a catalyst for everything; however you read that God has always existed, therefore he's an exception... I need a little help with that one.

If God made time then he is outside of time. This leads us to him being outside of time (making him not fully comprehensible to us) but we know that him being out of time and the universe means he just is. If he is not in time then he has no beginning and therefore can't be made.

Edit: 3am and sleepy time. Thanks for the discussion all, I will look forward to picking it up tomorrow.

Reach 07-6-2009 03:13 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134807)
Reach how do those scriptures contradict? Call me slow but I have read them before and I feel as if I understand there meanings fairly well but I hardly see the contradiction...

As for the evolutionary psychology I defiantly can see how that would work. Rubix sort of touched on it but I can see there is even more to it.

These passages do not contradict *each other*, obviously not, since they're all the same thing.

The contradiction ties into what I was saying earlier. All of these passages are claiming that, aside from the bible being the word of God, it is his literal word from which all must be followed (with nothing added or subtracted from it, from Deuteronomy).

If these passages are not true then they are direct contradictions (since they claim everything in the bible is the true word of God which must be followed). So, are these passages true?

How could they possibly be literally true after what I just discussed? How could these passages possibly be true if there are things in the bible that are demonstratively false? Further, how can these passages be true if we cannot properly discern PRIOR TO having more knowledge on the matter which passages are literal and which passages are allegory?

Thus they become direct contradictions, and the problem of internal consistency arises. My point comes up again - where is the consistency and continuity between allegory and literal meaning within the bible? There is no empirical way to find it, and thus no empirical way to ever 'prove' Christianity as objectively the moral foundation of our universe.


I don't want to continue to get into this, since it falls into the category of religion, which as you stated, wasn't the initial intent of the thread.

I suggest you continue your search for the answers to the biggest questions the universe posses to us...why are we here, how did it all originate, etc. However, you might want to leave Christianity as your rubric aside for the moment, unless you want to get lost in the logical tangle forever.

Flaming_Dingleberry 07-6-2009 04:08 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134826)
If God made time then he is outside of time. This leads us to him being outside of time (making him not fully comprehensible to us) but we know that him being out of time and the universe means he just is. If he is not in time then he has no beginning and therefore can't be made.

Edit: 3am and sleepy time. Thanks for the discussion all, I will look forward to picking it up tomorrow.

There is no proof that he made time, where did the logic come from right there?

Indeed those statements would have some sort of logic,

Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134826)
If God made time

but that is

Quote:

If
and only

Quote:

If
keyword: If

Squeek 07-6-2009 06:42 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Since you're away for several hours, let me sum up a lot of key points I think you may have overlooked.

1)
Quote:

Originally Posted by afro
My point still stands that you're taking God as a given. By taking that as a given, you're starting with a leap of faith and attempting to build logic around it. That's not bad in and of itself, but to claim that the entire thing is logical for that is wrong. You started with a seed of faith, but you overlooked that somewhere along the way.

I want to elaborate on this, because it's one of the things that makes trying to prove "God" so ass-backwards. In science, we begin with formulating a hypothesis as to how something works, and then we do thousands of tests to try to confirm it, and then if it gets confirmed we call it a theory until someone can disprove it or someone can tell us it's true always and forever.

In religious science, you begin with the 'facts' and work your way backwards. However, instead of applying thousands of tests, you apply slippery-slope logic that makes assumption after assumption to "PROVE" that God exists.

2) I think Reach went into far too great of an explanation when it comes to pretty pictures and music benefiting our survival.

First of all (and this is going to be a huuuuuuuuge assumption), let's assume that not every culture on Earth speaks English. I know, it's a leap of faith, but bear with me for a second. Now, let's assume other cultures actually want to communicate with each other. Hmm. They don't all speak English! How do they communicate with each other? Oh.

Another way to look at this is to understand that cultures tend to look at their culture and think it is great and worth passing on. Clearly worked for the Renaissance folks, since everything they painted has been idolized to this very day.

Pictures are a way of passing on your culture long after it has been destroyed, or communicating with people you have no hope to communicate with. You can describe with thousands of words what you're trying to describe, but since our cultures are so vastly different, we will probably not pick up on what exactly you mean by bright multicolored round disappearing object, even if we do understand the translation, whereas drawing a simple little circle in the sky with small lines coming out from it clearly shows you mean the Sun.

3)
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer
If you can go through and show the illogically of what the religion preaches, the fruit of the religion then I don't see how it is too hard to discern either way. Judge things by their fruits. Judge the validity of what the religion says.

I can see what you are saying. [Generic statement without a given basis] But logically looking through some of the evidence for and against the major religions of the world and Christianity certainly stands up to the test. [/] But religion will never be agreed on by logic alone.

First of all, I did judge Christianity and I deemed it illogical. So many things in Christianity don't make sense, and when I asked a priest / youth group leader, they told me that "god works in mysterious ways" and "you just have to have faith".

That wasn't good enough for me. And clearly, it's not good enough for you if you're reading apologetics.

How can Jesus be his own father? If Jesus and God are the same person, why does Jesus ask God for forgiveness? If Jesus is his own father, then does that mean he committed a sin by impregnating his mother with himself?

You don't have to answer any of that, because I'm sure you can come up with some convoluted answer to all of it. That's not the point I'm trying to make here. The point is that none of it makes sense, and it's not supposed to. Trying to explain miracles takes away the fact that it's supposed to be a miracle. This same phenomenon happened on the anti-Bible episode of Bullshit. A guy tries to explain how Moses could have parted the Red Sea by stating that they probably crossed the Reed Sea during low tide. But that removes the fact that it was a miracle!

When you remove miracles from religion, then it's no longer a faith. Just stop trying to prove that God exists and take everything at face value.

But since that won't work, please post these "proofs" of Christianity. Not just the Big Bang one either, though that was fun to debunk. I sincerely hope there's more than just "we don't know so God did it" in all of them. And I sincerely hope none of them are as dumb as the only other one I've heard, which is that the Great Flood carved the Grand Canyon.

Latentsanity 07-6-2009 06:49 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134826)
If God made time then he is outside of time.

This doesn't work entirely the way you'd like it to. 'Time', at least the way we perceive it, is just a way of explaining the order in which things will happen/did happen, not an actual thing. If God created the universe, then two things must be true: 1) There was a point at which God existed and 2) At that point, the universe did not yet exist.

Sounds pretty sequential to me.

The only way this could avoid using the concept of time as we know it is if, along with the creation of the universe, God also made 'time', which, by virtue of it suddenly coming into existence, retroactively had to include God's previous presence in the timeline.

However, this brings up the issue of how long God had existed before the creation of the universe. If God was never created, and had always existed, that means that there is an unquantifiable—but, notably, non-zero—length during which God existed before the 'creation' of time which, again, doesn't jive with the entire scenario.

The other option is that 'time', like God, has always existed, which seems far more likely, if you're going with that conception of God.

Flaming_Dingleberry 07-6-2009 07:06 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Latentsanity (Post 3135059)
This doesn't work entirely the way you'd like it to. 'Time', at least the way we perceive it, is just a way of explaining the order in which things will happen/did happen, not an actual thing. If God created the universe, then two things must be true: 1) There was a point at which God existed and 2) At that point, the universe did not yet exist.

Sounds pretty sequential to me.

The only way this could avoid using the concept of time as we know it is if, along with the creation of the universe, God also made 'time', which, by virtue of it suddenly coming into existence, retroactively had to include God's previous presence in the timeline.

However, this brings up the issue of how long God had existed before the creation of the universe. If God was never created, and had always existed, that means that there is an unquantifiable—but, notably, non-zero—length during which God existed before the 'creation' of time which, again, doesn't jive with the entire scenario.

The other option is that 'time', like God, has always existed, which seems far more likely, if you're going with that conception of God.

You can't put events in a time-line before there was time. Saying He had a never-beginning existence is about as reasonable as saying God existed before time... and who knows what that was like? Maybe God was there, doing his God thing for "no time", which (being beyond all human minds' comprehension) is what humans refer to as "all time" or "never had a beginning" and such. Of course I'm just thinking out loud. I'm just treating it as if the two theories are plausible, and this is apparently what came of it.

MrRubix 07-6-2009 07:46 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
The problem is that you're still using God to fill in gaps with the "God outside of time" argument.

"I don't know how this would be possible, but God is so awesome that he just MAKES it possible."

I mean, how can you disprove something like that? "God is so powerful that if we don't have an answer to something, we must assume it's beyond human comprehension and that it's something God did."

I just fail to see why people use "God" as a way to describe what they don't know. WHY must it be some sort of magic man behind the fabric of spacetime? Instead of using evidence to support or reject a hypothesis, it's as if the hypothesis is assumed to be true, and the evidence needs to be reworked and warped until the hypothesis seems reasonable, or evidence is simply made up altogether for the sake of insisting the hypothesis is true.

Then again, plenty of theists I talk to aren't really concerned with truth. Pick their claims apart with physics/evolutionary processes/etc, and it's almost always the same: "That makes sense but I still believe in God," which either means "I can't really explain to you why I believe in God despite your claims" or "I don't actually understand your claims." Usually people can't elaborate on the former because it's always something like "I've just believed it my whole life and it 'feels' right" without really considering the implications of such a statement.

When pursuing a higher level of understanding or truth, sometimes we have to put aside what we think we know and critically put old evidence against the new, and bridge the gaps where possible, revise where things were mistaken, and so forth. Does this mean I am open to an entirely new view of the universe? Potentially -- but it would be if new evidence presented itself that made something else overwhelmingly clear, while still being consistent with all the other evidence.

My question is why people choose to rely on "faith" in things like Christianity... but I digress.

(I don't really care, either, if this goes against the "no religion" request in the OP -- feel free to disregard this post if you want, then)

Latentsanity 07-6-2009 11:02 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Flaming_Dingleberry (Post 3135077)
You can't put events in a time-line before there was time. Saying He had a never-beginning existence is about as reasonable as saying God existed before time... and who knows what that was like? Maybe God was there, doing his God thing for "no time", which (being beyond all human minds' comprehension) is what humans refer to as "all time" or "never had a beginning" and such. Of course I'm just thinking out loud. I'm just treating it as if the two theories are plausible, and this is apparently what came of it.

The main issue with both of our theories is that the only way either of us can possibly 'prove' ours to be correct is to assert that what we believe is true, and then try and explain events from the point of view of someone who sees that theory as fact, and see which seems more logically possible. Of course you can't put events in a time-line before there was time, but my assertion was that there wasn't any point at which there was no time. Similarly, I suppose assuming that God exists outside of time leads to the conclusion that God created time, etc. Circular reasoning either way, but discussing something that is essentially explicitly stated as being beyond comprehension probably leads to a lot of that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrRubix (Post 3135122)
Then again, plenty of theists I talk to aren't really concerned with truth. Pick their claims apart with physics/evolutionary processes/etc, and it's almost always the same: "That makes sense but I still believe in God," which either means "I can't really explain to you why I believe in God despite your claims" or "I don't actually understand your claims." Usually people can't elaborate on the former because it's always something like "I've just believed it my whole life and it 'feels' right" without really considering the implications of such a statement.

The main reason people will continue to believe in God is because to any person who doesn't know for certain whether or not there is a God, there is really nothing to lose by believing in God. If God exists, and needs you to believe in his existence to avoid eternal damnation, people who believed in God win, and get to not be burnt to a crisp. If God doesn't exist, whether or not you believed in a God is irrelevant. From a strictly numerical standpoint, even if the odds of God existing are so incredibly small, the post-life average outcome for someone who believes in God is positive, while that of a non-believer is negative.

Of course, this all falls apart when you consider that there are multiple religions, many of which think the other religions are wrong, and will condemn you to fiery punishment if you picked the wrong one. Oh well.

Squeek 07-6-2009 11:43 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

The main reason people will continue to believe in God is because to any person who doesn't know for certain whether or not there is a God, there is really nothing to lose by believing in God. If God exists, and needs you to believe in his existence to avoid eternal damnation, people who believed in God win, and get to not be burnt to a crisp. If God doesn't exist, whether or not you believed in a God is irrelevant. From a strictly numerical standpoint, even if the odds of God existing are so incredibly small, the post-life average outcome for someone who believes in God is positive, while that of a non-believer is negative.
Except for the fact that the Bible says believing in God isn't good enough and that you need to do a hell of a lot more work to get into Heaven.

So, the real comparison is:

Living life for yourself not caring about invisible space men.

Living life in fear of going to Hell, making sure you don't piss off invisible space men.

MrRubix 07-6-2009 11:45 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Actually, the real truth is that if you don't worship me as the Almighty Creator, you go to a fiery hell for all eternity.

Skeptical? If you don't believe me, why believe anyone else? What have you to lose by believing in me, now? You're going to be sorry when you go to Hell forever because you didn't take my warnings seriously!




What I am about to say will come across as extremely presumptuous, narrow-minded, and disrespectful to most people, but it's something I know to be true: Everyone in this world who is religious is going to be in for a surprise when they die and find out there's nothing. Unfortunately, they won't realize it. Depressing and bitter, perhaps, but I do feel some power in "knowing" what will happen to us in death. The thing is, plenty of religious types feel just as strongly and believe in afterlife with the utmost sincerity. However, I sadly think the evidence leans heavily away from their views.

I wonder, Reach, if you fear death at all? I understand it's an "illogical" fear to some extent, since a death leading into nonexistence means you no are no longer able to even care once you stop functioning. However, as a living human right now, who is able to think, breathe, and experience emotion, I feel fear in the fact that time is short and our lifespans are unpredictable.

Afrobean 07-7-2009 01:11 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134748)
Logic is logic though? If logic propped up around a belief is illogical then you can attack the logic and the person is left with an illogical belief. If the person has a logical belief that holds up to the rigor of logic then surely that belief is logical?

No, because you're just applying logic after taking a belief as a given. Taking an unproven belief as a given, then attempting to prop it up with the best reasoned logic you can manage doesn't make the original belief logical. The original belief is still unproven, unverifiable, unmeasurable. It is STILL something that requires faith, not something which follows logically.

Quote:

How does the ability to comprehend the beauty of art honestly help natural selection?
It doesn't. That's why I said it happened accidentally. Being more intelligent helped our species survive, and with the increased intelligence came an understanding of the abstract that wasn't previously graspable.

Quote:

Also if our logic is accidental how can we believe what we obtain from the logic to be true? Therefore a belief in accidental logic is illogical.
It was evolved accidentally. It did not give us an evolutionary edge, but the increased intelligence that we developed led to it. I guess if you look at the big picture, our abstract understanding that evolved has given us an "evolutionary edge" (without it we never would have gotten society so far), but looking back at our ancestors who first started tipping toward more intelligent, their original basis of reasoned logic didn't directly help them. The original seeds of intelligence led them to use and create basic tools (the origin of technology), to interact in a group better (the origin of language). I'd figure that logic followed language some time later and simply was the natural order of us being curious about the nature of causality, the nature of the universe. Even animals show curiousity of things they are unsure of, we're just the only ones who try to discover, reason, and explain the causality behind it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134757)
It honestly dosn't strike anyone that as far as we empirically know we are the only ones in the universe who have a sense of beuaty? We are the only ones who find delight in pondering about how our universe works? Where we came from and why? Making fun of Creationists....errr, opps.

It's not that surprising to me. The planets are spread too far out that they're too difficult to reach even another planet that is unable to sustain our sort of life. I saw a special a while back where people were guessing that it was possible that there was life on one of the moons of Jupiter or something, but even then they're just saying it's theoretically possible that they could support the same sort of life we have ONLY at the bottom of the deepest of our oceans.

But I digress. The reason we are the only one we know of is that the closest Earth-like planet is simply too far away. There could well be intelligent life on other planets, they could even be venturing out into space, but we are only barely getting out into our own solar system. Forgive the pun, but the chances that we'd stumble across each other any time soon are astronomical.

It could also be that other intelligent life in the universe may be far behind. In science fiction, aliens are often portrayed as more advanced than we are, but if we're only just barely reaching out into space, I think it's even more likely that other life forms in the universe haven't even begun reaching out into the vastness of the universe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3134826)
If God made time then he is outside of time. This leads us to him being outside of time (making him not fully comprehensible to us) but we know that him being out of time and the universe means he just is. If he is not in time then he has no beginning and therefore can't be made.

What you're describing would be a being existing in the 5th dimension I'd say. He could infinite within our own visible dimensions, even time, but he would be finite within his own. However, I'd say that causality ceases for no man, even a 5th dimensional one. So where is his source? He may be infinite within our own dimension, but he does have a "beginning" in another. Maybe this god that created our universe in this third dimension was created by a god which is infinite in his own dimension, separated by a dimension or two.

And it's turtles all the way down.

ps on the topic of fear of death and the religious beliefs of the afterlife, I've always found it really funny that a religious person would be afraid to die. If I believed the sorts of things that religions tell about an afterlife, I'd be excited to die. You know those crazy extremists blowing themselves up in the middle east? That makes sense to me. They believe in this amazing afterlife, and they're getting themselves a quick one-way ticket there (or... they believe they are getting a one-way ticket there). But people elsewhere, no, they're afraid to die. It's as though they don't truly believe the stuff, because if they did, they should be in a hurry to get there. If Heaven is so great, why doesn't everyone go enlist in the military and volunteer for dangerous missions? Why doesn't everyone become a firefighter, constantly entering extremely dangerous situations to save others? Even the Christians who have had the "near death" experiences of their brains beginning to shut down aren't like this. No, they write books and live out a long life profiting from their experience. If they believe so readily, what are you doing sitting around here. If what you believe is true, this life doesn't mean ****.

windsurfer-sp 07-7-2009 02:15 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Ok, so this has boiled down to a full blown religious debate. I orginally wanted to avoid this as there is so much being said and it makes really hard to sort of give quality replies to every point made, which is sad because part of me would love to try and properly answer them. The fact is I don't have the time to do so, nor do I personally have all the answers.

These sort of threads have generally gotten me down as it is kind of overwhelming, but from them I have left with questions and all I can do is trust God that the answers are out there and in general over time I seem to come across them. Yes, I can see how can that be seen as starting off with an answer and trying to find evidence to fit the answer and not looking at the evidence and finding an answer.

I think the biggest factor to how any of these arguments play out is simply whether or not you are willing to believe in anything beyond materialism. Just as many Christians will try and say they are willing to look at the physical evidence, many skeptics will try and say they believe miracles are possible.

If you are unwilling to believe that there is potentially more in this world then protons nuetrons and electrons then please do not bother posting again. You will simply stop any potential progress this thread can make.

Squeek 07-7-2009 02:28 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3135663)
If you are unwilling to believe that there is potentially more in this world then protons nuetrons and electrons then please do not bother posting again. You will simply stop any potential progress this thread can make.

The hypocrisy of this statement is overwhelming.

Watch this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rebuttal
If you are unwilling to believe that there is potentially more in this world than God then please do not bother posting again. You will simply stop any potential progress this thread can make.

Wow what did I just do there?

Aside from that, the entire time you're talking in Universal terms, you're under the assumption that humans are IT. That there's nothing else in the Universe. There are billions of planets and an uncountable number of stars, but Earth is the ONLY PLANET with intelligent life, mirite?

I know there's absolutely no proof that there are any other forms of intelligent life in the Universe, but there's also no proof against it. This is the standard "does god exist" result, but I'm purely speaking statistics here. Statistically speaking, with all the possible sources of life, it is beyond my comprehension that humans are the one and only form of intelligent life in the Universe.

windsurfer-sp 07-7-2009 02:47 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Squeek (Post 3135448)
Except for the fact that the Bible says believing in God isn't good enough and that you need to do a hell of a lot more work to get into Heaven.

Ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins that are stopping you from entering heaven. Squeek, quote from the bible in context if you want to make a claim about the bible.

John 14:6 "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Afrobean
It was evolved accidentally. It did not give us an evolutionary edge, but the increased intelligence that we developed led to it. I guess if you look at the big picture, our abstract understanding that evolved has given us an "evolutionary edge" (without it we never would have gotten society so far), but looking back at our ancestors who first started tipping toward more intelligent, their original basis of reasoned logic didn't directly help them. The original seeds of intelligence led them to use and create basic tools (the origin of technology), to interact in a group better (the origin of language). I'd figure that logic followed language some time later and simply was the natural order of us being curious about the nature of causality, the nature of the universe. Even animals show curiousity of things they are unsure of, we're just the only ones who try to discover, reason, and explain the causality behind it.

You haven't answered my point. If our logic only came from random mutations then it is no more reliable then a computer program wrote by closing your eyes and hitting the keyboard. Why should we trust anything we believe if our logic is just random nothingness.

Also is there not a point to be made that out of all our species we seem to be the only ones with any real sense of self awareness? Does a Gorilla see himself as I? I can see that we in many ways have evolved from apes or what have you, but there is something that just seems special. Or is there nothing that we can't explain through evolution?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Afro
If what you believe is true, this life doesn't mean ****.

John 10:10 "The thief comes only to steal, slaughter, and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

Christianity would argue that your barely even living on this Earth until you are in relationship with God. Jesus came so that we could have an abundant life, why would we wish to leave quickly? Whats the rush to get to a party that wont end, if you want to use that analogy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrRubix
However, as a living human right now, who is able to think, breathe, and experience emotion, I feel fear in the fact that time is short and our lifespans are unpredictable.

To me this feels like an argument you could make for us as human beings having a soul, having something eternal in us. The use of the word "I". Only you can call yourself "I", your "I" to me is just a "you". Can "I" really disappear, to me an "I" is eternal. Excuse the crap wording and thought process, but there is something to be thought about there. If someone wants to try and better what I was saying please do :)

Squeek, two things regarding point 3 of your post. Judging concepts through the people who try to convey them is like trying to judge a car through someone's description. Someone may know a Ferrari is a good car but they may not know how. They may not be able to explain how, but it dosn't mean its a bad car.

Secondly, I agree that trying to rationalize miracles through science or discounting them completely ruins the point of faith. But if you can believe that someone created the universe then it isn't much of a stretch to believe that he could alter the natural laws that the something created. That in no way proves Chrisitan miracles but it certainly helps start the process.

I guess the word prove does not mean physically show that xyz happened or how xyz happened, just demonstrate that its possible and likely given proper assumptions.

windsurfer-sp 07-7-2009 02:49 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Squeek, whats the point in discussing things of a spiritual nature if you refuse to belive that spiritual things could exist?

Thats what I am trying to say.

Squeek 07-7-2009 04:21 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3135681)
Ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins that are stopping you from entering heaven. Squeek, quote from the bible in context if you want to make a claim about the bible.

John 14:6 "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Yeah, and Jesus is really, really strict too.

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).

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot

Pharisees obeyed these laws religiously (if you'll ignore the pun). If you can't obey those laws and more, you can't get into Heaven.

People cite John 3:16 all the time as if it's the only time Jesus ever mentioned how to get into Heaven. I'm not surprised, since the other 7 times he mentions getting into Heaven are absolutely insane and do not coincide with this "one" way at all. But this is the word of God, after all! Not only that, but Jesus himself! Why do so many people ignore the other 7 rules? Nobody's getting to Heaven at all! It's kind of depressing. If only people would read the Bible, they would see that they're not obeying the word of God.

But I digress. This has gotten far too outside of the confines of this thread.

As for the rest of your post, I'm not a scientist nor do I follow science. I practically failed science in high school and college. I don't really know a damn thing about quantum physics. I just cite actual scientists who have explained these things. I'm not a good philosopher either. I really can't wrap my head around things like cosmology and infinitely expanding Universes. It doesn't make sense to me. However, it makes a hell of a lot more sense than just filling in the gaps of science with "God did it", especially when those gaps are constantly filled with better explanations, leaving less and less wiggle room for "God". Look, you've already confined him to the start of the Big Bang. How much more ground do you have to lose before you think critically and examine the facts without the bias of trying to fit "God" into them all?

Now onto the next post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3135682)
Squeek, whats the point in discussing things of a spiritual nature if you refuse to belive that spiritual things could exist?

Thats what I am trying to say.

Windsurfer, what's the point in discussing things of a scientific nature if you refuse to believe that scientific things could exist?

That's what I am trying to say.

Neither side of a Christian/Science argument is going to listen to the other side. You think we're stupid for blindly following science, we think you're stupid for blindly believing in religion.

The only difference is that science is not closed-minded. Anyone and everyone can disprove anything they want to. If you don't like the Theory of Evolution, then find evidence that disproves it. It's that simple! But if I don't like the idea of Intelligent Design, no amount of evidence will convince you that you're wrong. It's kind of a double standard in your favor, but the funny part is that science still has never lost to religious claims.

I would still love to see more apologetics since my google searches are only turning up pages that link to books and not actual examples.

Afrobean 07-7-2009 07:12 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3135681)
You haven't answered my point. If our logic only came from random mutations then it is no more reliable then a computer program wrote by closing your eyes and hitting the keyboard. Why should we trust anything we believe if our logic is just random nothingness.

I never said "logic is just random nothingness". I said that HUMAN'S logical nature developed as our intelligence increased. It wasn't a primary feature of the intelligence, but it developed nonetheless, and even though it didn't prove useful in the early days of the beginning of mankind, once civilization really got going, it proved to be more important than anything else.

Just because evolution gives us something accidentally doesn't mean it's not a fundamentally good thing. Actually, that's the whole ****ing point of evolution. Random mutation creating useful traits that get passed on to progeny. The fact that a trait's origin is random chance doesn't mean it's not a good trait, not just in the case of human's logical nature, but for all evolved traits.

Quote:

Also is there not a point to be made that out of all our species we seem to be the only ones with any real sense of self awareness? Does a Gorilla see himself as I? I can see that we in many ways have evolved from apes or what have you, but there is something that just seems special. Or is there nothing that we can't explain through evolution?
There is nothing I know of that cannot be explained through evolution. All other animals, as far as I know, do not have a sense of awareness that we do. It is a byproduct of having the intelligence we naturally do, coupled with being brought up in society. No other animals have a social system like ours and no other animals are as intelligent. What you define as "something special", presumably, a soul, I recognize as just the fact that our brain is advanced far beyond all other animals and social learning builds us into the people we are. You would say that we are selfaware because we have a spark of divinity, I say it is because we are intelligent. Your explanation requires an unverifiable belief, my explanation follows logically on the basis of evolution.

Quote:

Christianity would argue that your barely even living on this Earth until you are in relationship with God. Jesus came so that we could have an abundant life, why would we wish to leave quickly? Whats the rush to get to a party that wont end, if you want to use that analogy.
What's the rush? Isn't Heaven supposed to be eternal bliss? A neverending state of euphoria? Do you know the **** people do just to have a few seconds, a few minutes, a few hours of these sensations on Earth? Compare this life to an eternity of blissful euphoria and this life is just a pile of ****. Don't give me anything about how this life is good with God or whatever, because nothing in life could compare to an eternity of that, except I guess being ****ed up on ecstasy all day long every day (but even that won't last anywhere near as long as forever). If that is truly coming for all who are good in this life, best to live this life as good and quickly as possible.

Quote:

I guess the word prove does not mean physically show that xyz happened or how xyz happened, just demonstrate that its possible and likely given proper assumptions.
ABSO****INGLUTELY NOT

Especially when you're talking about LOGIC, something is not PROVEN just by explaining a way in which it is POSSIBLE or LIKELY GIVEN OUTLANDISH ASSUMPTIONS. Something being possible DOESN'T MEAN ****, and REQUIRING AN OUTLANDISH ASSUMPTION for something to just be considered "likely" is ****ing stupid and NOT a proof of ANYTHING.

Holy ****, man, really? To prove is not to merely show it is possible. What the ****. It is possible that I am actually an alien from Jupiter. Therefore, it is proven I am an alien. WHAT Ok stop. Let's start again with an outlandish, unverifiable assumption. I was born in the year 1800. Therefore, I am over 200 years old. Am I 200 years old really? No, because the outlandish assumption is in fact TOTALLY ****ING WRONG and HAS NO BASIS IN REALITY.

Seriously, I am just totally losing my mind here. How the hell can you seriously say "the word prove does not mean physically show that xyz happened or how xyz happened, just demonstrate that its possible and likely given proper assumptions." I really want to know what makes you think that pointing out the possibility of something is in ANYWAY comparable to proving it.

Reach 07-7-2009 08:33 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

To me this feels like an argument you could make for us as human beings having a soul, having something eternal in us. The use of the word "I". Only you can call yourself "I", your "I" to me is just a "you". Can "I" really disappear, to me an "I" is eternal. Excuse the crap wording and thought process, but there is something to be thought about there. If someone wants to try and better what I was saying please do
Why is an I eternal? An I exists as long as any particular being exists. Also, how do you get from A) We're cognitively self aware of our existence to B) We have souls. Our self awareness comes from the complexity of our physical brains, so I fail to see the link.

Quote:

But if you can believe that someone created the universe then it isn't much of a stretch to believe that he could alter the natural laws that the something created. That in no way proves Chrisitan miracles but it certainly helps start the process.
So God tinkers in the mix, if you will? There's no divine plan or absolute perfect elegance to the laws of the universe - Instead God goes around making little changes here and there, as if he has made little "oopsies!' that he has to correct? Doesn't that sound a bit ridiculous to you? It does to me. So basically, he's a screw up?

Alternatively, he practices favoritism by tinkering to help certain people and not others. Hell, sometimes really bad things happen! Does he purposely tinker to make bad things happen? Why would he do that? When a plane crashes and everyone dies except one why does he tinker to save only one person? Does he like them more than the others? He is too weak to save the others? Was killing everyone else part of his plan, and if so, isn't that cruel?


This is a logical disaster you've gotten yourself into. The physical laws of the universe can never, ever be broken. This severely limits our choices in this scenario. Assuming God exists, he can 1) only be revealed through what is natural, so God is the universe itself, or 2) God cannot possibly reveal himself directly - He created the universe to do exactly what it has always done and does not intervene.

To expect anything else is to throw your new found infatuation with logic out the window.


Quote:

You would say that we are selfaware because we have a spark of divinity, I say it is because we are intelligent
I would agree - even Chimpanzees show evidence of self awareness, as well as the ability to construct and utilize tools...and now let's compare their brains to ours: http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSc...s/allman1a.jpg

It's that gigantic piece of neural tissue that makes us special. Obviously that much more tissue allows us to take our self awareness to an entirely new level.


Also, to support this why don't we look at what happens when our brains don't develop properly or don't develop into the right size (Too small).

If it doesn't develop properly: See: http://www.judiciaryreport.com/images/fas-brain.jpg FAS - the child is mentally retarded with very little mental capacity, very little self awareness of cognitive abilities we consider normal.

Too small: See microcephaly. Same thing. As brain size decreases, so does intelligence, and so does self awareness and other human like traits.


Also, as an interesting exercise, note the similarities between the human skull and the chimp skull. Note the recession of the mandibular jaw, and the compression of the maxillary jaw to decrease biting power and increase skull space available for brain. Also, check out this picture of an ape without hair: http://www.boingboing.net/hairlessmkb0416.jpg

MrRubix 07-7-2009 08:45 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
I cringe when I see the word "random" in these debates.

Again, as I said in another thread, evolution IS. NOT. RANDOM.

MrRubix 07-7-2009 09:14 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Windsurfer your "religious logic" falls apart because you're simply making illogical jumps that aren't supported by anything. Yes, I am "me," but why does that make me eternal? Why jump to the "logical" conclusion of a God when most of your reasoning is gap-filling? Why are you taking in the Bible when, as Reach said, much of it is demonstratively false?

It feels like, to me, you're taking an approach of "It doesn't matter how much evidence against God you find, there's always that chance everything else that you can't disprove is true and so God must exist."

"I guess the word prove does not mean physically show that xyz happened or how xyz happened, just demonstrate that its possible and likely given proper assumptions."

Neither of those views are "logical." A "proof" does not rely on something that is "likely," because a proof means something is necessarily true.

Even at that, if we are to go by what is likely, it's like saying science has a near-100% chance of being right, and religious types have a near-0% chance of being right. I don't quite think religious types understand how much evidence is blasting back against them.

For any claim or "logical linkage" you make in favor of God, you can't get upset when people bring up evidence against it. If there's evidence against something, you can no longer say it's a proof. Using God to fill in the gaps of everything has absolutely no logical basis.

Flaming_Dingleberry 07-7-2009 07:32 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
This thread is just too much now.

So...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Latentsanity (Post 3135379)
The main issue with both of our theories is that the only way either of us can possibly 'prove' ours to be correct is to assert that what we believe is true, and then try and explain events from the point of view of someone who sees that theory as fact, and see which seems more logically possible. Of course you can't put events in a time-line before there was time, but my assertion was that there wasn't any point at which there was no time. Similarly, I suppose assuming that God exists outside of time leads to the conclusion that God created time, etc. Circular reasoning either way, but discussing something that is essentially explicitly stated as being beyond comprehension probably leads to a lot of that.

Yeah, I was treating the entire concept as if it were a riddle created by the Cracker Jack Company, there's nothing to prove, I don't even believe in what I was explaining. It was a hypothetical analysis of how everything might have started if both theories (1. God was forever 2. time was not) were plausible, which I myself doubt very much. Trying to actually prove anything about God is ridiculous, and I'm ending my religious contribution to this thread right there.

windsurfer-sp 07-8-2009 02:24 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Alright, at the very top of this thread in big letters I wrote "I do not want this thread to turn into a religious thread or a creation versus evolution." When it started out this way, naively and egotistically I thought, its cool I can handle it. As it has been made clear I can't.

As I have said earlier though, an unbiased thinker will not take my lack of ability to properly demonstrate the validity of Christian beliefs as a sign that they are invalid.

I am happy to keep aiming for the moon and falling short. The fact is I can potentially handle trying discussing a single front of discussion at a time. I can't handle an all out assault from every direction. Thats why I asked for this not to turn into a religious thread.

I still think there is truth in what I believe and I am very interested in critically thinking about it. I would love to make some more threads in the future on very small and narrow topics in the hope that we will not get things out of hand.

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

Edit: 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? It does feel like there has been next to no effort to try and think about things from the other point of view (mine), no effort to try and find some positives in my arguments.

Squeek 07-8-2009 02:59 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
To be fair, asking for this not to become a religious thread is like shouting "THERE IS NO GOD" and asking for people not to tell you that you're wrong.

And asking us to see things from your point of view is rather... odd. I mean, you're telling us to assume "ok WHAT IF there was an omniscient omnipotent invisible being in the sky" when, to us, that's a rather large assumption to make and is outside of our scope of reasoning. For those of us who operating in the world of logic and proof, even making this huge assumption is like giving you an 'in', if you will.

It's the same problem I was having with the Metaphysics thread, though I didn't post it. The person there is trying to make an argument wherein you cut two people's brains in half and split them among each other in trying to argue that your sense of self is lost when you do this. When you keep forcing yourself to use "what if"s in order to try to win an argument, it sounds to me like you're grabbing for straws at that point.

But I'll play your game regardless.

What if it were God? Then anything and everything can be God. Then there's no point in doing any scientific examinations of anything anymore, because it's easier to just assume it's God's doing.

It's the same as the slippery slope legal argument. If you make one thing illegal, you can make anything illegal. If we say God did one thing, then God can do everything. Which is why we'll never admit, even in assumptions, that there has ever been a God doing anything.

Afrobean 07-8-2009 03:44 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3137525)
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.

Quote:

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 07-8-2009 03:51 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
This thread just sploded my mind.

windsurfer-sp 07-8-2009 06:40 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
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).

Quote:

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 07-8-2009 06:55 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
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 07-8-2009 08:49 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
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 07-8-2009 08:56 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3137637)
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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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!

Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3137642)
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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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."

Quote:

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 07-8-2009 09:28 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
“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 07-8-2009 12:37 PM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
:) *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 07-9-2009 03:18 AM

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by windsurfer-sp (Post 3137642)
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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.


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