Formally Illogical Religions Etc

[David Sklansky]

Although I have previously agreed that the beliefs of speific religions, farfetched as they may be, cannot be logically disproved in a formal sense, I realize that this may not always be true.

A religion and/or its practitioners cannot hold all three of the following three beliefs without being inconsistent in a formal logical sense. But I think some religions, and certainly some people, do. Those three beliefs are:

1. God would never punish someone unfairly or unjustly.

2. God will punish someone who doesn't believe rather precisiely in the teachings of the religion in question. In other words he won't only punish atheists, he will also punish practioners of other religions even if they believe in him in a somewhat different way.

3. The teachings of the specific religion in question is not clearly obvious to be true even to those who are making a strong effort to find the truth.

It should be common sense that you cannot be logical and hold all three of the above beliefs at the same time. Yet some people do. And I think some religions force you to. (I'm guessing that many who hold all three of these beliefs do so because they thought about them seperately without realizing they can't all be simultaneously true. People do that regardeing lots of subjects. Especially politics.)

If there is any religion that truly teaches all three things, nothing more need to be said to show them wrong. No scientific or atheistic arguments are needed.

Now most religions get around this problem by rejecting one of the above precepts. One way is to claim that the evidence for the truth of your particular beliefs IS in fact strong enough so that people who don't accept it are somehow greedy, or lazy, or evil, or some other sin that God has a right to punish. But this is clearly ridiculous even if you again do not invoke science or atheism. One need only to point to the many pious learned men and woman who have studied many religions and do not choose the religion in question. No specific religion has persuaded more than about 20% of people like this. Clearly a just God could never punish these pious truth seekers just because they hapenned to be, through no fault of their own, incorrect about some specific teachings.

Another way around the original contradictory statements is to give up the belief that God will punish innacuracies in the specific beliefs about him (eg was Jesus his son, Mary was a virgin, humans evolved, etc. etc.). Keep in mind that it is not necessary to give up the belief that he will punish sin and wrongdoing, just incorrect theories about him. Of course if this is true, why the need for such specific religions? If God doesn' care whether you get it exactly right, why should you? Why not simply fuse all the religions that believe in one God and stop having wars about the details? Save your arguments for the atheists. My answer unfortunately, is that people are stupid and crave things to obsess over when they don't have more important things to think about.

Of course I would be remiss if I left out the third way to get out of the original contradiction. Make God a bad boy. Have him willing to punish you for not knowing the truth about him even if you tried hard to and honestly failed. Perhaps some religions do honestly believe that. Perfectly logically I might add.

[RYL]

I think GOD is used to explain the unexplainable and the infinite. Believing in GOD gives easy answers for a lot of tough questions. It simplifies explanations. At the same time it teaches you morals. At the same time it causes wars. But, as we know, with every good comes every bad. Why do we live? Why are we here? What will happen to me after I die? If you believe in GOD, all these questions are answered. So people, in essence, feel comfort in the fact that their questions are answered.

[lehighguy]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course I would be remiss if I left out the third way to get out of the original contradiction. Make God a bad boy. Have him willing to punish you for not knowing the truth about him even if you tried hard to and honestly failed. Perhaps some religions do honestly believe that. Perfectly logically I might add.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm Catholic. It's quite interesting.

[PairTheBoard]

David Sklansky -
" people are stupid and crave things to obsess over when they don't have more important things to think about."

LOL

PairTheBoard

[PairTheBoard]

The Catholic Church has admitted to the possibility of "salvation" Outside the Church. It has also spoken of the sanctity and primacy of the Individual Conscience.

PairTheBoard

[reubenf]

I know someone who believes all three to be true. He is extremely good at logic puzzles and mathematics. He is both clever and can follow long, complicated logical arguments.

I know he has done a lot of hard thought about his religion in attempts to make it work for him logically. He has very strong beliefs about the definition of faith, and about free will and various other things, which did not come from the church but from his own invention so that he could make his religion work for him. So I am sure he already had realized the contradiction you mention when I brought it up to him many years ago.

He responded that maybe God is not bound by logic. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[lehighguy]

That's not what I learned in Sunday school. But then again my Sunday school was taught by people with court ordered community service.

[NotReady]

Which religion are you talking about?

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

He responded that maybe God is not bound by logic


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know what your friend said, and the following is not a response to Sklansky's post, but the content of the above is not necessarily contra logic, if qualified as follows:

He responded that maybe God is not bound by human logic.

My position is simply that God is the source of all logic, we can think logically because He made us in His image, but we are finite and so what may conform to absolute logic may not be logically comprehensible to us.

A simple example:

Daddy tells child to eat his vegetables. To the child this is illogical because carrots taste bad. So is Daddy illogical?

(edit for sp)

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
That's not what I learned in Sunday school. But then again my Sunday school was taught by people with court ordered community service.

[/ QUOTE ]

Catholic theology loosened up considerably in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Modernist Theology may still not be taught in Sunday Schools but you can read it in books like, "On Being a Christian" by Hans Kung - a Catholic Theologian in good standing at the time of that book. It looks like the new Pope will not be emphasizing the Modernist theological perspective. But that doesn't mean it's not still available. There are plenty of Modernist Protestant thinkers as well.

PairTheBoard