Why demand logic?

[PrayingMantis]

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Praying Mantis,
I think what people are criticizing, or at least what I criticize, is the honesty of religious followers. They do not own up to the type of game they are playing and say they are playing football with us when actually they are playing your "lets pretend we're dreaming" game.
Now you could tell me, "aha, thats because lying about the game is part of their game."
Maybe so. This could go on ad infinitum. I dont believe that most religious adherents ARE actually doing what you say they are. I believe they are simply lying about what they are doing--both to themselves and to me.
If somebody is hitting a golf ball and they tell you, "Hello, I'm playing tennis right now. I am on a tennis court." I have every right to tell them, no you are not. Let's talk about this tennis court and this game of tennis. perhaps we are just having a language issue. No...apparently you are simply lying. We share the same language and you are lying.

-g

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I actually agree with you, at least in some sense. I think that there's a lot of dishonesty going on on the "religious" side. However, the thing is, there's quite a lot of it on the "atheistic" side too, but it is a different kind of dishonesty. It's a dishonesty with regard to thinking that one is completely "free" from illogical behaviours, tendencies and beliefs, only because he is "atheist". From my expiriece, most "atheist" people simply develope their own individual (and/or social) "religions", which often are as crazy and arbitrary as any "normal" religion (and this is true also for very intelligent people) while at the same time criticizing "religious" people of being "illogical". It's not better than the "religious dishonesty", IMO.

[chezlaw]

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You are in fact saying that all the things that people believe in are logical by definition. However, this is clearly not true, since if it was true, there was no meaning to logic.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't think I said that. Anything someone believes is believable by definition. The things in themselves are not logical - they are just things.

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But you did say so. Several times on this thread you have specifically said and implied that it is not possible to believe in illogical things (for instance - your analogy of believing in an illogical thing to playing an unplayable [unplayable=illogical, by your definition] game), therefore (I repeat myself) all the things that people believe in are logical by definition. However, this is clearly not true, since if it was true, there was no meaning to logic.

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No, you've misunderstood me again and again. As its impossible to believe the unbelievable, a religon that demands you believe the unbelievable has a problem (its illogical is a standard name for the problem).

I assume you agree with that or are you saying its possible to believe the unbelievable.

The religon can still exist and people can believe it exists, they can even believe that most of it is true. They can also believe its all true provided they haven't realised all that it implies.

Maybe I've misunderstood you but I think you're reading more into the description of something as illogical than it implies.

chez

[imported_luckyme]

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This paragraph is to the point.

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actually, they all were, ;-) but by your response to them we are simply talking past each other on most of them. I could be clearer, sorry.

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would it make sense in your opinion to criticize a religion, any religion, for having inconsistencies in the structure of its "arguments"? Or for having clear self-contradictory elements, or "logical leaps"?

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I'm leary of the 'criticize' part, if they leave my rights alone I don't care if they believe UP and DOWN are equal and cause herpes. It's when it moves into the rest of the world and makes logical claims "IF Y..then Z" that the argument They are making ( not the religion directly) needs to be called to account. Logic is about a lot of things and one is the nature of "claims/arguments".

I'm trying to visualize a useful illogical discussion/debate/claim. I'll admit I can't.
If they make claim A : because X then Y. They have tacitly agreed to discuss in a cause-effect logically valid manner...in that they are expecting me to step into this logical structure and grant that such a claim is valid.
Let's say I agree with them that sure, if X then Y is logically sound. Next, they claim B: if W then U. But that treads on the logical toes of Claim A, based on the logical structure we've set in place. Surely I have to refute that in the same logical structure they forced on my when they used Claim A. If not, and they can shift the agreed logical structure we are using at each statement then we could just sit around and grunt and pass the pipe ( even that has implications of agreed meanings).

"logical leaps" they are welcome to them ( I suspect you mean leaps of faith) but they usually bring those into a logical exchange and want them to be treated as 'valid', yet if the disbelieving side did the same thing ( made some wild 'faith' statement) and wanted to use that as the premise for the next level of exchange, the theist side would be yelling about "where the H does that come from? how can you claim that? etc". Well, either we both can make logical leaps or we both can't, essentially. Does it have a meaning for one side to be logical?

THE point being that it's not a option. Logic of some form is forced on us by the nature of exchange. Even internally we depend heavily on the aspect of logic that is built from consistancy and induction( Hume was anal). We would chide ourselves for 'misreading' some situation even though we never had a formal logical thought about it. To 'misread', implies the situation can be analyzed in some coherent fashion, and that we 'should have known'. I toss at you, you duck..and are mildly frustrated when it turns out to be a fluffball.

So, a religion can be as illogical ( by whatever rules) as it requires internally, it just can't step outside that or it walks smack into some logical structure, even if noboby wants it to ( I know I don't).

luckyme, my track record suggests this won't help

[PrayingMantis]

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a religon that demands you believe the unbelievable has a problem

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I simply don't understand what you mean by that. What do you mean by "has a problem"? what kind of a problem? I don't remember you were talking about "a problem" prior to that, so I don't quite follow.

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I assume you agree with that or are you saying its possible to believe the unbelievable.

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It's you who are talking about beliveable vs. unbeliveable. I have no interest in the unbeliveable, since all of actual religions (and all the sets of strories/"arguments"/whatever, that comes with them) are 100% beliveable, since, obviously, people believe in them.

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The religon can still exist and people can believe it exists, they can even believe that most of it is true. They can also believe its all true provided they haven't realised all that it implies.


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What do you mean by "provided they haven't realised all that it implies."? You are saying that religious people will all leave their religion once they realize all that it "implies"? I must say that this sounds like a pure religious talk by itself. What should be "implied"? is there some specific date in which it will be "implied"? and by whom? This sounds very mysterious, IMO.

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Maybe I've misunderstood you but I think you're reading more into the description of something as illogical than it implies.

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But I'm not reading anything into the description of something as illogical! I'm not even interested in the question of whether X is illogical or not! That's the whole point of my original post.

[chezlaw]

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

[PrayingMantis]

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Logic of some form is forced on us by the nature of exchange.

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You made an interesting post and I'll reply later on (too busy from now on), but I'd just like to make one point.

When you say "logic of some form" you are essentially emptying the word logic. Saying "logic of some form" is like saying "any kind of logic". However, "any kind of logic" is not logic, in the normal sense. It is simply not possible to speak about logic in terms of "some form of...". If you don't restrict your definitoin of logic in _some_ way, it's not logic anymore - since clearly _any kind_ of relations in the real or imaginary word will fit it now.

That's why I think that "Logic of some form is forced on us by the nature of exchange" is really a nice statement, but at the same time completely meaningless, unless in some obscure, almost religious way.

[PrayingMantis]

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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]

[gumpzilla]

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These are two very different games. Of course the scientific game looks "better" to many of us, but this is a completely arbitrary point of view. From some theoretical "absolute" point of view, with no defined needs, there is no better game, only two different games. In other words, unless you have some predetermined idea about the nature of reality, you can't decide which game is better.

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I agree with this statement. However, the scientific method generally has predictive power, which the religious method generally lacks. For this reason, I think it is sensible to favor the scientific, and thus far from absurd (which was your claim) to be critical of the religious worldview when it tries to make statements about perceptible reality.

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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.



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A lot of your post seems to me to turn on an equivocation. Do I demand that a book be logical in order for me to believe it? Absolutely, if by 'logical' you mean true. To be moved or deeply affected by a work of art or a great book is not the same thing as aspiring to hold one's beliefs rationally. I can appreciate Shakespeare without demanding that his plays be historically accurate. I can appreciate a work of art without demanding that it be realistic.

When it comes to forming beliefs, though, I don't see at all how these facts about appreciating works of art mitigate against our aspiring to hold our beliefs rationally. If I think that a particular belief is irrational, I am free to reject it on exactly those grounds. If Shakespeare has Cleopatra say, "Let's to billiards" I am free to enjoy the play nonetheless, while rejecting the belief that billiards was played in ancient Egypt if there is no evidence to support that belief.

[David Sklansky]

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.