Are Theists Illogical for Believing in God?

[Violet]

Thanks for that existentialist curve ball Sae :S

Well I'd be wrong actually... as logic itself contains no faith. However, applying logic to the world is to have faith it I should leave reasoning to when I'm fully awake ^_^

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Oh... and if you claim that you know logic... that would also be a statement of faith So while logic itself (as with the rocks themselves, and the trees, and the angry robotic ninja spider monkeys) is not faith based... any knowledge of it must be

[fr0d0]

Thankyou. I'll file that under nobodygivesashit

[Violet]

Thankyou. I'll file that under nobodygivesashit

What a novel category ^_^

[Caecilian]

Logic is a methodology for making deductions from initial postulates (axioms). It is formal, in the sense of being concerned with the form that an argument takes, rather than its content. Logic can tell you if an deductive argument is valid or not given certain axioms, but what it doesn't do is tell you if the axioms are true or false. For example:

Given the axioms
1. Dotard is God.
and
2. God is omnipotent.
then
3. Dotard is omnipotent.
is a perfectly logical conclusion.

However, its also completely wrong, because (alas!) 1 is manifestly false (sorry, Dotard).

So is religion illogical? My short answer is 'not in any intrinsic sense'.

Theists are just as capable of making logically sound arguments as anyone else. The main problem isn't with their use of logic- its with their underlying assumptions, i.e. their axioms. If you choose as your axioms propositions like 'God exists' and 'Jesus saves us from our sins' then you're in Candyland already, and whatever perfectly logical conclusions you draw from those axioms are going to be Candyland conclusions.

Where logic and religion do collide, however, is when the religionists choose axioms that contradict each other. This is the problem of incoherence. The christian god, in particular, appears to have attributes that are a) axiomatic to christians and b) contradictory, making the christian god an incoherent mess. Epicurus, writing 3 centuries before christianity, put it well:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

[fr0d0]

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

I've always found that illogical. It presupposes an alternate reality where God would be different to the logical God we define that fit's this reality.

God chooses to defeat evil and does. Gods plan is obviously not to prevent evil, or there'd be none. God by his nature defeats evil. Being a positive force he could do no other.

A classic philosophical answer is Leibniz' (lampooned in Voltaire's famous novel, "Candide")
The answer is that this is the best of all possible worlds. What that means is that it would be possible for a world to exists with less evil, or even no evil in it. But such a world would not be as good as the actual world that exists. Why is that? Because all evils are necessary evils. Which is to say, that unless that evil existed, a compensating good would not exist.
An example: consider the good of compassion or the good of pity. It would be impossible for there to be compassion or for there to be pity unless there was the need for compassion or the need for pity. Thus, for compassion or pity to exist, there has to be pain.

So the idea is this:
1. Every evil is necessary for some good,
2. And the good more than compensates for the evil which is necessary for it.

Origen, an early Christian scholar and theologian, suggested that the problem of evil was a misnomer. Origen's response to this was the concept of Apocatastasis. Simply stated, the ends justify the means. That is, all of creation is reconciled by its purpose of facilitating freewill.

The fifth century theologian Augustine of Hippo mounted what has become one of the most popular defences of the existence of God against the Epicurean paradox. He maintained that evil was only privatio boni, or a privation of good. If evil, like darkness, does not truly exist, but is only a name we give to our perception of privatio boni, then our widespread observation of evil does not preclude the possibility of a benevolent, omniscient, and omnipresent God.

--Augustine basically states that good and evil are, in some circumstances, asymmetrical.

[Minimalist]

God chooses to defeat evil and does. Gods plan is obviously not to prevent evil, or there'd be none. God by his nature defeats evil. Being a positive force he could do no other.

Um...things work out pretty much the same if you posit that there is no god and shit just happens....over and over.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I don't think that a belief in the supernatural is logical,

Belief if the supernatural is almost invariably logical. The most common logical form is the syllogism. It has been argued that this form of logic forms the basis of Western philosophy.

Logic does not guarantee truth.The form of an argument may be logically valid,but the inference untrue.

--especially when it is a belief in an omniscient/omnipresent/omnipotent being. '

The Abrahamic god ,with its infinite attributes is seen by many (not all) as a logical contradiction.

God did it' is not a 'logical explanation' for anything.

The God of the gaps is logical enough,especially in a pre scientific society.It is an argument from ignorance,using all available information. That theists today still use it indicates their ignorance ,not lack of logic.

Your assertion seems to imply that the materialist beliefs held by most atheists are formed and maintained by reason and logic. That there is a superiority over naive theists. I have seen no evidence to support such a view.My observation is that human beings, as individuals and as as a species, are incapable of consistent rational thought or behaviour.

[fr0d0]

Um...things work out pretty much the same if you posit that there is no god and shit just happens....over and over.

Precisely.

[Minimalist]

You are a very odd theist.

[The_Flying_Skeptic]

The main point he was trying to make is that in cases where science is not our source of information, we cannot automatically assume that reason has ceased to function and evidence has ceased to be relevant.

I'm not totally sure what you trying to say. I tried to come up with an example of what you may be trying to say: well, if someone was flying in public, which is totally contradictory to what we knew for sure (this new phenomena of a person flying would mark a new era in science, and before that would be the 'post unnatural flight science'), someone is still flying no matter how contradictory this new phenomena is and now this phenomena is simply incorporated into science or human knowledge.

Let me know if I'm on the same page with you with my example. But what I was truly trying to say in the thread was simply that a person may be logical on false or unsubstantiated premises and calling a theist 'illogical' is inaccurate. The theists response to this is that his beliefs/conclusions are based on logical arguments.

All cats are green. / premise 1
Jim is a cat. / premise 2
Jim is green. / the conclusion based on premise 1 and 2

we know that not all cats are green but you can't call me illogical because I made a logical argument. I wasn't being 'illogical'. The premises of the argument are however negligent of human knowledge that dictates that not all cats are green as most theists are negligent to the sum of all human knowledge supporting a naturally driven universe over a universe that allows a person to walk on water and spontaneous healing amputees but this negligence is different from being illogical. Let's not call it a negligence either, it's prioritizing isolated, personal experiences over general, common experience.