My latest infatuation with logic.

[MrRubix]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.

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.

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.

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]

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.

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]

Re: 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.

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]

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.

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]

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.

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]

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.

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,

If God made time

but that is

If

and only

If

keyword: If

[Squeek]

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)

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)

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]

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.

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]

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.

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]

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]

Re: My latest infatuation with logic.

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.

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.