Why demand logic?

[chezlaw]

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The reason I haven't joined this thread is that I have no idea what anybody is talking about. Even though I have read every post.

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my bit be hi falootin stuff. It may be simplistic, it may be wrong but I'm sure you can understand it if you try.

chez

[Siegmund]

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Why do you demand religion (any kind of it, for that matter) to be logical? Do you demand a great book, or movie, to be logical, for you to believe it, to "accept" it? To take you to new, exciting, places, or even change you deeply in rare cases? No. Sometimes the most amazing works of arts, the most moving masterpieces, are the ones least logical.

Music is not logical.


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Forgive me if I skip over the rest of the thread and return to the OP's premise.

Sorry, but YES, logic/order/structure is a BIG part of what makes classic works of art, literature, and music great. Every part of a great story serves a purpose and fits together, no random sub-threads just stuck in gratuitously or major plot themes left completely unconnected. The power of the best symphonies and poems is the combination of emotional content with a tightly ordered structure. There's a reason why the serial and atonal composers failed to displace Beethoven from concert halls.

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Logic is a game. Religion is a game. Very very different kinds of games.

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I can believe some people view logic that way. I don't. Logic, or mathematics, or the laws of nature, or whatever name you'd like to give it, is the set of rules by which all games in the universe, and the universe itself, are played.

At least we can each agree that the other is confused, no?

[BluffTHIS!]

I have a hard time believing that you really understand what logic is. You are making an assertion regarding the believers of one religion or philosophy criticizing the beliefs of another based on their own axioms. This is similar to asserting that a theorist of Euclid's geometry criticizes the theorems of a theorist of Riemann's geometry because they are not consonant with Euclidian axioms. This is not true. It would however be appropriate for the Riemann theorist to point out that a certain theorem proposed by a theorist of Euclidian geometry did not logically follow from Euclid's axioms.

Thus logic is merely a test for validity among differing theorems of a certain system, and makes no claims regarding the validity of the axioms. Also logic is also not a guide to metaphysics or aesthetics.

You need to get a better education regarding all these matters.

Ah yes. The last resort for those who can't defend their beliefs. And, your analogies are horrible. Music is enjoyable when it obeys some musical "logic" rather than haphazard notes slammed together in an awkward effort. If some group or individual makes a claim ("Jesus is the son of God", "You must have faith to be saved", etc.), then what else do we have at our disposals to evaluate this claim? The fact that it "sounds good" just like that song did, too? If this is your basis for faith, then I challenge you to fly in an airplane engineered by men who built it in a way that appealed to them aesthetically, but disregarded science and logic. C'mon, put your money where your mouth is.

[PrayingMantis]

There are some interesting replies here, of course including David's rather obscure one, however, I won't be able to respond to them during the next 12 (at least) hours (if it matters to anyone).

So I have chosen BluffTHIS! for one quick reply.


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I have a hard time believing that you really understand what logic is.

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Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you take a different perspective) I do understand what logic is.




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You are making an assertion regarding the believers of one religion or philosophy criticizing the beliefs of another based on their own axioms.

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Well, let's suppose I do.

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This is similar to asserting that a theorist of Euclid's geometry criticizes the theorems of a theorist of Riemann's geometry because they are not consonant with Euclidian axioms.

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OK.



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This is not true.

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?

What is not true? It's quite funny that you critisize my "understanding of logic" while making such a vague claim yourself. Is it not true that "I am making an assertion regarding the believers of one religion or philosophy criticizing the beliefs of another based on their own axioms", or that "this is similar to asserting that a theorist of Euclid's geometry criticizes the theorems of a theorist of Riemann's geometry because they are not consonant with Euclidian axioms".?

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It would however be appropriate for the Riemann theorist to point out that a certain theorem proposed by a theorist of Euclidian geometry did not logically follow from Euclid's axioms.

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Of course it would be. I agree. What is your point?


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Thus logic is merely a test for validity among differing theorems of a certain system, and makes no claims regarding the validity of the axioms.

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Agreed.

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Also logic is also not a guide to metaphysics or aesthetics.

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This is a strange and problematic statement. Had you phrased it differetnly, closer to what I said in my OP, I would agree. As such, I can't agree with that, since, for instance, the philosophical discepline of aesthetics (which is what "aesthetics" would mean) certainly has a lot to do with logic. However, this is not necessarily true for "beauty" itself.

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You need to get a better education regarding all these matters.

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Well, I have more than enough education in "all these matters". Of course, the mere fact that you have to finish your post with such a statement (and also, considering other parts of your post), tells me that you are having very hard time dealing with "all these matters" yourself.

[PrayingMantis]

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Ah yes. The last resort for those who can't defend their beliefs. And, your analogies are horrible. Music is enjoyable when it obeys some musical "logic" rather than haphazard notes slammed together in an awkward effort. If some group or individual makes a claim ("Jesus is the son of God", "You must have faith to be saved", etc.), then what else do we have at our disposals to evaluate this claim? The fact that it "sounds good" just like that song did, too? If this is your basis for faith, then I challenge you to fly in an airplane engineered by men who built it in a way that appealed to them aesthetically, but disregarded science and logic. C'mon, put your money where your mouth is.

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??

What are you talking about? This post makes no sense at all. Also, I have no interest at all in defending anyone's beliefs. For all I care, all beliefs are complete gibberish.

[chezlaw]

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Your latest post is strange to me. You asked about why we demand religon is logical. I'm trying to explain what it means to demand something is logical and hence why we might demand it.

If, as you say, all religions are 100% believable then I would not say any of then are illogical but unless you accept that its impossible to believe the unbelievable then I'm not sure how to communicate with you. Everything I'm claiming follows simply from there.

chez

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I must admit I have probably lost you here... (or you have lost me).

I'll try again in a few hours, maybe it will become clearer. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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Most likely we have lost each other. Hopefully we can sort it out later and provide some solace for DS.

BTW. I'm also bewildered as to the cause of the last few threads.

chez

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There is a strange, third option: you mean to say that some people believe in unbelievable things. But this is self-contradictory, of course

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Mantis, you're just mangling language and meaning. I think you're deliberately trying to be thick

The point is that some people believe in things which AREN'T TRUE. Plenty of untrue things are believable to gullible or uneducated people. Your bs about this being 'self contradictory' is just [censored] with semantics

For example, some people believe:
- Homeopathy cures cancer
- Dice systems work (for David)
- Demons cause mental illness
- Allah will destroy all the infidels.
- The soul is in the blood, therefore, blood transfusions are evil.

How do fight harmful beliefs like these without logic? How do you determine which are true? Surely you can see why this matters.

The third option is the correct one, and it's not at all strange.

[bholdr]

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The reason I haven't joined this thread is that I have no idea what anybody is talking about. Even though I have read every post.

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[IronUnkind]

Many of the posters (and the OP in particular) seem to have a great deal of difficulty articulating their ideas. This thread has the ingredients for interesting discussion, but right now everyone is misunderstanding one another.

There are some tantalizing bits in there, and I suppose the basic question is why must we measure the truthfulness of a proposition by its ability to conform to logic? I think this is an important problematization of the dialogues that have been taking place here, but I fear that most people will not take the question seriously. Or among those that do, clarity of expression will prove too challenging.