Religion and Logic

[musicaloddball]

I am not trying to start a debate here. This is kind of a survey. I'm just trying to see what people think here. Please don't start fighting because of me.

So....my professor has been going on all week about how religion is where people, when challenged, are most likely to do away with logical discussion and instead to say things like "Religion is about more than logic," and "I rely on faith." And it kind of gets on my nerves, because I don't think it's true.

But what is YOUR take on it? Do you think my professor is right? If, for instance, someone challenged your belief that Jesus rose from the dead, would you try to use logic to defend yourself? Or is religion outside or above logic? (I know the person challenging you might not listen anyway and cold, hard logic might not be the nicest way to do things, but let's just assume for the sake of discussion that the challenger would listen and would not be offended by your logic.)

[Midori]

Religion is in fact about more than logic...however, anyone who says religion is opposed to logic is misguided.

Depends on what you mean by logic though. Jesus rising from the dead does certainly seem to go against our human logic about life and death. However, the reason we believe it is because we have other logic that dictates to us that he did rise from the dead. We don't blindly believe that God raised him from the dead; we have seen indications that God exists and is good. Some of us believe because we've seen so many good people believing it. Some of us believe because we have really seen God's presence in our lives. None of should believe in order to escape from logic.

As to whether religion is "above" logic...iagain, it depends on what you mean by logic. I believe God is logical, so religion is not above or below logic; it's in the same place.

I could on about God and logic and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, but that'd be a little too nerdy for this forum, I think.

[Shao Feng-Li]

I think religion (the one true Christian religion) and logic go hand-in-hand. God is reasonable and logical- but maybe not always seem so to our simple little evil mud minds.

[Rusty Claymore]

I think while Religion represents substance, Logic is a term used to refer to someone's mental patterns. To me, it's logical to shoot armed assailients. To others, the logical thing to do is go along with what they want and hope no one gets hurt. The closer your mentality is to God's, the more logical Christianity is. The coexistance of Election and Free Will is a concept I find logical, though I don't understand it's depths. Not to step on toes but to represent another view, it's logical for someone who believes that Evelution took place that a fish could turn into a bird.
That's my take, anyways.
(Btw, I'm not claiming my mentality is closer to God's than other individuals. The subject is too dynamic to allow for that.)

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Oh my gosh... I could speak volumes on this subject...

But I'll keep it brief. I believe that there is a split between logic and faith. Logic, at it's core, is always circular and only restates its premise. So I'm a fideist (Kierkegaard).

So with the deconstruction of logic itself leads to one having to make a "leap of faith", so to speak.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Human reason (logic) can only take us so far. The rest is up to God's revelation to us (faith). Rely purely on logic and you ignore the spiritual reality of life. Rely purely on faith, and you might not be discerning or grounded and be able to relate to people. Reason and revelation really should work hand in hand with each other. After all, God created us with brains to use and explore. He doesn't want his followers to be lazy, stupid bums.

[LadyRushia]

Yeah, I feel like God's logic is different from human logic, hence why we can understand some things about Him but not others. Human logic, with its limited perceptions, can't fully wrap around an infinite God who is the creator of the universe.

[shooraijin]

It is, of course, eminently possible for one's belief in Christ to proceed from neither one.

[Dante]

Religion can't be opposed to logic - what is believed, typically cannot be completely true and completely false at the same time; Zen as that may sound. Breaking the laws of logic belongs rather, to the realm of cats and quantum mechanics.

People in general however, are quite willing to throw logic out the window and this has nothing to do with religion; gambling and the stock market during a bubble suffice as examples of illogical human behavior outside of their faith (atheists included). Philosophers are perhaps the worst at this, because they claim to be masters of logic, but have nothing on mathematicians. The English language is not designed for constructing logic, at best it can give some feeble 'sense' of what another person is thinking, but it cannot reconstruct reality.

[ich1990]

I believe that the Logic/Faith dichotomy is not a dichotomy at all. It is a continuum. The closer we stay to our own vantage point as humans, the more correct our own reasoning is. The closer we get to God's vantage point, the more incorrect our human reasoning is.

In other words, I think it is entirely possible and important to use our human critical thinking towards things that directly effect our human existence (especially when God is involved). That is, the Bible and Jesus' commands and life. When it comes to us trying to use our pitiful logic on things far from human existence, however, I think we are being foolish. God doesn't exist as we do, His thoughts are not our thoughts. So, when it comes to trying to understand things like the God's plan for the world, the mode of His existence, or perhaps the mystery of the Trinity (basically anything that He hasn't directly communicated to us with Earthly methodology) I think it is best left to faith.

TL;DR

Given our view K and God's view K', our classical (I.E. human) view of K' is skewed (of course, God's relativistic view of K is perfect). Since we can only approximate K', and to less and less accuracy the closer our topics approach God, we should put our efforts towards understanding God's actions within K. Occasionally, it might help to approximate K', but we should leave room for our own error. Faith is that room for error.

[MxCake]

the funny thing is that our logic is nothing compared to Gods logic what we call logic here on earth God chuckles at as we chuckle at a 5 year olds logic the bible is 100% logic but not human logic. as in it wouldent be "logical" to walk on water to us but to God its more then logic its natural. thats my take on it XD so tell your teacher that the Bible is logic its just his problem he cant understand that logic....ok dont tell him that i dont want you in trouble. XD

but we cant believe blindly and our logic is still important in life you always have to know why you believe what you believe.

[Dante]

the funny thing is that our logic is nothing compared to Gods logic what we call logic here on earth God chuckles at as we chuckle at a 5 year olds logic the bible is 100% logic but not human logic. as in it wouldent be "logical" to walk on water to us but to God its more then logic its natural. thats my take on it XD so tell your teacher that the Bible is logic its just his problem he cant understand that logic....ok dont tell him that i dont want you in trouble. XD

but we cant believe blindly and our logic is still important in life you always have to know why you believe what you believe.

Not really, logic is among the most simple of mathematical sciences (it amounts to truth tables and such), and done right it has no equal. In essence, all that logic tells you, is that if several things are true or false and there is a certain relationship between several things that tell whether something else is true or false, then you can determine the truth or falsity of that thing by plugging in true or false for the dependent variables. And that's only if the equation is true, otherwise a contradiction will form.

It's not logic to discuss whether it is "logical" or not for someone to walk on water, as that is simply too physical to fall to the realm of solid logic, we just apply the phrase because of our ignorance of real logic (which only works on very very abstract constructs - for which we can clearly define the rules) - for instance, what if the water is frozen? Or what if you're really small so that you don't break the surface tension? Logic doesn't apply, only common sense applied to a human being - physical reality is just far too fickle to apply logic in it's absolute form - all we can do is hope for an approximate form, but that's actually fairly accurate most of the time.

Even still many of us misuse this phrase, I am probably guilty myself, but it's just a phrase of English and not true to logic's original intent - who's capabilities at determining truth are simple, plain and perfectly accurate - it's perfection is why many are attracted to mathematics, it gives them something truly "perfect", I wouldn't be surprised if there were some out there that even thought that mathematics was itself a facet of God himself simply because they view it as perfect.

I don't personally hold this view, and have come to treasure my emotional side more, despite it's rough edges. But I am well aware of the intense power of logic, I've derived everything from the irrationality of the square root of two to the nature of the infinite from a few simple mathematical definitions and logic - and that's a long journey to take.

[Sebastian Michaelis]

All I know is the only things that are logical are what God see's as Holy and right and just that and are simply math is nothing compared to God's way of thinking, it bests all of are science ,math you name it God's is better

[Nate]

How is God's 2+2=4 better than mankinds 2+2=4?

Also how come everyone says God's logic is better than man's etc. etc. but then really like books like Romans and Corinthians, who were written by a man in prison? Sure, you can say God influenced Paul, but Paul still wrote them. God didn't possess Paul and write the words with His own mind. Paul still used his own logic to make statements about Christianity and the churches. And they're held up as Scripture.

Just throwing that out there.

[Kaligraphic]

Typically when we use "logic" in this sense, we're not speaking of formal logic but of the application of similar principles in human reason. Still, I believe Pascal has touched on something important - that logic (and reason) only function where ideas and their relationships are already defined.

One of the reasons that Christians fare poorly in debates is that we've collectively ceded our idea of "God" to philosophers and theologians, treating Him as an idea to be defined and constructed. We'll pull up ideas like the Ontological Argument, which basically says that there ought to be a god, and think that we've done something clever, without realizing that the very fact that we're arguing the general case means that we've tacitly conceded the specific. We begin to argue history and cosmology, and find ourselves baffled that people don't hasten to accept a god who by our arguments is made about as relevant as the neutrino.

I, personally, prefer a scientific view of God rather than a formulation of just logic and philosophy. Logic may explain, but science is about evidence, and the ultimate evidence for God is simply to meet Him. Can you prove by pure logic that God exists? Hang that, you can't even prove by pure logic that I exist without resorting to potentially falsifiable evidence. Science is about improving our understanding of things bit by bit - and, yes, discarding bits that we've shown are false.

That last bit is the scariest, because a lot of times we wrap our faith up in every doctrine we've ever heard, and if we lose one, we'd have to question all of them. It's scary to give up what we've accepted as a core doctrine, but if we are paralyzed by the fear, we'll never give up our wrong ideas about God to see who He really is.

Even as our logic and our reasoning about God is broken again and again, that does not mean that God is not there - rather, it means that we can discard parts of our image of Him that hide his true nature. To that end, logic and reason should be employed scientifically, as servants in our quest to understand what lies beyond the horizon of our knowledge.

[MxCake]

All I know is the only things that are logical are what God see's as Holy and right and just that and are simply math is nothing compared to God's way of thinking, it bests all of are science ,math you name it God's is better

i really couldent say it any better,

Typically when we use "logic" in this sense, we're not speaking of formal logic but of the application of similar principles in human reason. Still, I believe Pascal has touched on something important - that logic (and reason) only function where ideas and their relationships are already defined.

One of the reasons that Christians fare poorly in debates is that we've collectively ceded our idea of "God" to philosophers and theologians, treating Him as an idea to be defined and constructed. We'll pull up ideas like the Ontological Argument, which basically says that there ought to be a god, and think that we've done something clever, without realizing that the very fact that we're arguing the general case means that we've tacitly conceded the specific. We begin to argue history and cosmology, and find ourselves baffled that people don't hasten to accept a god who by our arguments is made about as relevant as the neutrino.

I, personally, prefer a scientific view of God rather than a formulation of just logic and philosophy. Logic may explain, but science is about evidence, and the ultimate evidence for God is simply to meet Him. Can you prove by pure logic that God exists? Hang that, you can't even prove by pure logic that I exist without resorting to potentially falsifiable evidence. Science is about improving our understanding of things bit by bit - and, yes, discarding bits that we've shown are false.

That last bit is the scariest, because a lot of times we wrap our faith up in every doctrine we've ever heard, and if we lose one, we'd have to question all of them. It's scary to give up what we've accepted as a core doctrine, but if we are paralyzed by the fear, we'll never give up our wrong ideas about God to see who He really is.

Even as our logic and our reasoning about God is broken again and again, that does not mean that God is not there - rather, it means that we can discard parts of our image of Him that hide his true nature. To that end, logic and reason should be employed scientifically, as servants in our quest to understand what lies beyond the horizon of our knowledge.

why do you prefer to think of God scientifically?

How is God's 2+2=4 better than mankinds 2+2=4?

Also how come everyone says God's logic is better than man's etc. etc. but then really like books like Romans and Corinthians, who were written by a man in prison? Sure, you can say God influenced Paul, but Paul still wrote them. God didn't possess Paul and write the words with His own mind. Paul still used his own logic to make statements about Christianity and the churches. And they're held up as Scripture.

Just throwing that out there.

" The Apostle Paul said, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God

Psalms 68:11 says, "God gave the word, great was the company of those who published it

[MxCake]

Typically when we use "logic" in this sense, we're not speaking of formal logic but of the application of similar principles in human reason. Still, I believe Pascal has touched on something important - that logic (and reason) only function where ideas and their relationships are already defined.

One of the reasons that Christians fare poorly in debates is that we've collectively ceded our idea of "God" to philosophers and theologians, treating Him as an idea to be defined and constructed. We'll pull up ideas like the Ontological Argument, which basically says that there ought to be a god, and think that we've done something clever, without realizing that the very fact that we're arguing the general case means that we've tacitly conceded the specific. We begin to argue history and cosmology, and find ourselves baffled that people don't hasten to accept a god who by our arguments is made about as relevant as the neutrino.

I, personally, prefer a scientific view of God rather than a formulation of just logic and philosophy. Logic may explain, but science is about evidence, and the ultimate evidence for God is simply to meet Him. Can you prove by pure logic that God exists? Hang that, you can't even prove by pure logic that I exist without resorting to potentially falsifiable evidence. Science is about improving our understanding of things bit by bit - and, yes, discarding bits that we've shown are false.

That last bit is the scariest, because a lot of times we wrap our faith up in every doctrine we've ever heard, and if we lose one, we'd have to question all of them. It's scary to give up what we've accepted as a core doctrine, but if we are paralyzed by the fear, we'll never give up our wrong ideas about God to see who He really is.

Even as our logic and our reasoning about God is broken again and again, that does not mean that God is not there - rather, it means that we can discard parts of our image of Him that hide his true nature. To that end, logic and reason should be employed scientifically, as servants in our quest to understand what lies beyond the horizon of our knowledge.

why do you prefer to think of God scientifically?

[MxCake]

How is God's 2+2=4 better than mankinds 2+2=4?

Also how come everyone says God's logic is better than man's etc. etc. but then really like books like Romans and Corinthians, who were written by a man in prison? Sure, you can say God influenced Paul, but Paul still wrote them. God didn't possess Paul and write the words with His own mind. Paul still used his own logic to make statements about Christianity and the churches. And they're held up as Scripture.

Just throwing that out there.

" The Apostle Paul said, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God

Psalms 68:11 says, "God gave the word, great was the company of those who published it

[TGJesusfreak]

The way i see it. Religion is a poison. Christianity isn't a religion. it's a relationship with God. Religion is a set of rules to follow to get you to paradise. I like Logic. I choose it over religion anyday.

why? Because logic tells me there's a God by proof. I can feel him in my heart. and in everything i do. Logic tells me that I cant safe myself. Logic tells me that no rules I follow will save me. only having a relationship with God and acceting him does.

so I say faith and logic is the right way. Religion is a MANMADE idea.

[Nate]

" The Apostle Paul said, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God

Yes, but Paul wasn't writing Scripture. He was writing letters to churches. Three hundred years later, his letters BECAME Scripture, but they were not Scripture when he wrote them. So that verse doesn't apply to my post.

Christianity isn't a religion.

Yes it is.

a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

That sounds like Christianity to me. Explain how Christianity does not fit that definition (that is the definition of the word "religion" by the way).

Also, if you really believe "Christianity isn't a religion" then if someone asks you what your religion is, you'd say "None," right? You can't say "Christianity" if you truly believe it isn't a religion.

Because logic tells me there's a God by proof. I can feel him in my heart. and in everything i do.

That's not logic. A Hinduist can feel their gods in their heart and everything they do. Does that make Hinduism correct? A Muslim can feel Allah and the prophets in their heart and everything they do. Does that make Islam correct?

Using "I feel it in my heart" is not a good excuse, because everyone feels something different in their heart. In fact, listen to testimony of those who turned away from God and gave up Christianity. What will they say? "I couldn't feel the presence of God. I felt in my heart God abandoned me. I feel like God hates me."

You feel God in your heart? Let's see what the Bible says about the heart, shall we?

"The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?"

You can't appeal to "I feel it in my heart" because Hinduists and Buddhists and Muslims feel it in their heart that they're right too, and you don't think they are, do you? If that's true, then "I feel it in my heart" clearly cannot be evidence for God's existence.

[MxCake]

ok nate here Psalms 68:11 says, "God gave the word, great was the company of those who published it

and if thats true for the old testament then it must be true for all the other books in the Bible

The way i see it. Religion is a poison. Christianity isn't a religion. it's a relationship with God. Religion is a set of rules to follow to get you to paradise. I like Logic. I choose it over religion anyday.

why? Because logic tells me there's a God by proof. I can feel him in my heart. and in everything i do. Logic tells me that I cant safe myself. Logic tells me that no rules I follow will save me. only having a relationship with God and acceting him does.

so I say faith and logic is the right way. Religion is a MANMADE idea.

your wrong and right Christianity is a religion and its not having a relationship with Christ theres a diffrence between having a relationship and being apart of a releigion theres no title with having a relationship with God

[MxCake]

ok nate here Psalms 68:11 says, "God gave the word, great was the company of those who published it

and if thats true for the old testament then it must be true for all the other books in the Bible

[Nate]

ok nate here Psalms 68:11 says, "God gave the word, great was the company of those who published it

Um...okay. That means what exactly? PS context is important, Psalm 68 is talking about God attacking an opposing army, since 68:12 says "Kings of armies did flee apace: and she that tarried at home divided the spoil."

So please tell me how this in any way, shape, or form has anything to do with Paul's letters to the churches.

Also in response to your edit just now, "The Bible" did not exist until a few hundred years after Christ's ascension, and the Psalms are part of the Jewish scriptures, remember there's a whole separate religion that doesn't like ours that uses those books.

[Sebastian Michaelis]

How is God's 2+2=4 better than mankinds 2+2=4?

Also how come everyone says God's logic is better than man's etc. etc. but then really like books like Romans and Corinthians, who were written by a man in prison? Sure, you can say God influenced Paul, but Paul still wrote them. God didn't possess Paul and write the words with His own mind. Paul still used his own logic to make statements about Christianity and the churches. And they're held up as Scripture.

Just throwing that out there.

God's 2+2=4.... simple numbers can't contain or explain GOD and his math thats why its better than human math cause human's can't even begin to comprehend(sp) the way god would do math also ... about the written by a man in prision doesn't make since sure he wrote it in prision but all of it was truly done by god and his will alone not by the man writing the scripture.. just saying

[Nate]

God's 2+2=4.... simple numbers can't contain or explain GOD and his math thats why its better than human math

What you just said makes absolutely no sense. Two is two, no matter what. Not "two" as in the word but the mathematic representation of two distinct objects, I mean. "God's two" can't be superior to "man's two" because they're the same.

cause human's can't even begin to comprehend(sp) the way god would do math

Why would God do math? He knows the answer to everything already anyway so He wouldn't need to.

about the written by a man in prision doesn't make since sure he wrote it in prision but all of it was truly done by god and his will alone not by the man writing the scripture.. just saying

Um, no, I'm pretty sure Paul wrote the letters. Unless you're advocating that God possessed Paul's body so that Paul was some sort of avatar for God, Paul wrote them. God may have inspired Paul, but God didn't write them, Paul did. Remember, these were letters. If I write a letter to my grandma that contains awesome theological truths, it's still a letter to my grandma. God didn't write my letter to my grandma for me, I wrote it. God may have given me great knowledge, but it's still my letter.

And so it is with Paul. I'm not denying God had influence on the letters Paul wrote. Of course He did! But they're still Paul's letters, to specific churches of his day. Paul didn't write them going "One day these letters I'm writing will all be collected in a book that future generations will read!" Paul wrote them going "Man these churches have some problems I should tell them how to fix those problems." It's not the same.

[MxCake]

Um...okay. That means what exactly? PS context is important, Psalm 68 is talking about God attacking an opposing army, since 68:12 says "Kings of armies did flee apace: and she that tarried at home divided the spoil."

So please tell me how this in any way, shape, or form has anything to do with Paul's letters to the churches.

Also in response to your edit just now, "The Bible" did not exist until a few hundred years after Christ's ascension, and the Psalms are part of the Jewish scriptures, remember there's a whole separate religion that doesn't like ours that uses those books.

please read my pm

[goldenspines]

Whenever I think of logic vs/and religion, I always was reminded of the idea of Pascal's Wager (see wiki for more of an explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager). That mainly deals with the existence of God more than religion practices, though. I'm still a bit unsure as to whether the OP was referring to "religion" being simply a belief in something(or having faith in it), or whether he was implying the more complex version of 'religion" tied in with rules and regulations depending on the "religion".

I dunno, though. Just my thoughts.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Yeah but pascal's wager doesn't prove anything. It works best for the self, sure. But that's the extent of it.

There is no proof for God. There is also no proof against God. Therefore agnosticism is the most logical position to take. Every single proof for God can be shown as "not fully possible" (hence no longer a proof) by some other method. You can say that the universe had a caus and it must have been God, but David Hume's argument against that is possible. Thus it is no longer a proof.

You can say that "God's logic is above our logic", but then how do you know this? You're still using your brain/logic to believe it. You're really just assuming things for, at the end, no substantial reason.

You can't really use the Bible to defend the Bible either. That's circular reasoning and thus a fallacy.

[shooraijin]

Unless you're advocating that God possessed Paul's body so that Paul was some sort of avatar for God, Paul wrote them.

Let's not sidetrack this thread into Scriptural inspiration (at least not yet).

[MangaRocks!]

Wow, this is interesting, because one of my favorite non-fiction books is actually The Ultimate Proof Of Creation by Dr. Jason Lisle, which basically shows how the laws of logic themselves prove the Bible is true. It's fascinating, and I'd recommend it to everyone here. You can (legally!) read part of it for free on Google Books.

(And no, I do not know the author or anything! I just really like the book and think it would be helpful to the discussion. )