Are Theists Illogical for Believing in God?

[Purple Rabbit]

just because something contradicts 'reality' doesn't mean it's illogical. (the whole point of this post was to illustrate that just because some of the premises believed by theists are contradictory to science, they are still logically deducing a conclusion from these premises. an argument can be logical but not true.

Your usage of 'logical' and 'illogical' is just too vague. You can only talk about what is illogical when you have defined what you mean by logical. Sure, if you define it wide enough anything goes and the label will fit anything.

But that's not what logic as a serious discipline of human thought is concerned with. That business looks at what is at its basis and has found distinct logical frameworks that are not compatible with each other. Currently, or rather for several decades now, a debate is going on within the logic discipline on what is the relation between these frameworks and reality. A fascinating area of logic. I haven't made this up myself, you can find this on the net. Hans Reichenbach, WV Quine, Hilary Putnam aren't just some loonies. This is real debate in logic and philosophy driven by the startling empirical results found in QM and other areas.

If you adopt propositional logic with its three basic principles/laws/axiomas as the basis of logic for all, you are forced to conclude that quantum logic isn't logical. In common language terms as 'logical' and 'illogical' are used rather loosely and 'illogical' soon becomes an ill defined category. But IMO this only is a word game. I prefer to avoid the term 'illogical' in these cases but rather would use terms as 'distinct logic' or 'alternative logic'. The question is still open on what logic applies to our reality.

As to theists, I believe this discusion on logic is beyond them in 99,999999% of the cases. Take the Transcendental Argument for the existence of God (TAG) for instance, one of the more elaborate logical theists' argument that I know of. It's a theistic argument that takes boolean propositional logic at it's core, i.e.:
1. Law of identity: 'Whatever is, is.'
2. Law of noncontradiction: 'Nothing can both be and not be.'
3. Law of excluded middle: 'Everything must either be or not be.'
But it fails to acknowledge that our reality might not obey these rules on every level. So, I agree they are still deducing a logical conclusion, but not just some 'common logic'. They are using a specific logic (boolean propositional logic), which in short is the idea that judgements about reality are either true or false. So in effect they are not just using logic in some wide sense, they quite openly are using a distinct kind of logic, propositional logic, that currently fails to describe reality at the quantum level. IOW they define the three laws as absolute truth without questioning and they are not interested in how this realtes to reality. IMO the very fact that reality through empirical results tells a different story is a quite convincing argument that all truth claims should be evidence-based, that thought constructs alone should not be trusted as to pertain to reality.

an electron = electron even if it has wave-particle behavior. Remember spherical triangles. There is such a thing we call spherical triangles but they aren't strictly (or the triangles we refer to in Euclidean geometry) triangles or spherical; they are in their own category. Considering the nature of electrons we could say, as in the way we categorize spherical triangles, 'electrons aren't strictly waves or particles'. Saying that an electron has a dual nature is not the same as saying that 'something exists and doesn't exist at the same time' which is paradoxical or illogical. in plain English electron ≠ electron means 'electron is not electron' doesn't make sense, even in its dual nature, huh?

Here also things tend to end in word games and loose juggling with ill defined terms. Mind you, I'm not suggesting that such is done deliberatedly. The spherical triangle really is a specific patch on a sphere enclosed by three arcs in Euclidean Geometry. Its fancy and intruiging name suggests it harbours a contradiction but cannot hide its rather mundaine nature when you know how it is defined in geometry. It's nothing special, but it isn't a triangle and it isn't a sphere as defined in EG. It's a fancy name for a specific patch on a sphere. But don't let this name fool you into thinking that triangles can be spherical at the same time in the sense the EG's core definitions on spheres and triangles.

For an electron it is quite another story. Normally particle behaviour is not compatible with wavelike behaviour on the macroscopic level we as humans observe. Combining these two different behaviours on the same object is what constitutes the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, i.e. particle = wave. But there have been considerable problems with the Copenhagen Interpretation (regarding the collapse of the wave function) one of which is known as the Schrodinger's Cat paradox, leading to the conclusion that living = dead which clearly violates A=A as ever there was a way to demonstrate that violation. Since Schrodinger some progress has been made however (for instance by introducing the quantum decoherence) so in the embellished Copenhagen Interpretation A=A might still be true. But the point is that the conclusion cannot be up front that the logical basis we depart from is never susceptible to adaptation and that in short is what Hilary Putnam put forward.