so you concur that muslims can not enter heaven

Nice!

I will definitely use this to annoy my Muslim friend!

The individual muslim can if they change their beliefs but the religion as a whole denies what is need to have eternal life. Namely that Jesus Christ was and is the son of God and that he died and was ressurected. That is Father was and is God the creator of the all things. On and on.

Pletho

He has to agree with you though as to the questions that lead up to the final statement. If he is is not stupid and knows what a prophet represents which he should since muhammed was suposedly also a great prophet he should fall nicely into this trap.

Pletho

Yes exactly. If he disagrees, then he has to acknowledge that Muhammed may not have spoken the truth.

My prediction is that he'll disingenuously say Muhammed > Jesus to escape this problem. This will still be fun for me though.

A greater prophet thing can't be used because that would water down the nature and trustability of a prophet.

It actually would negate a prophet because that is what a prohet is all about.

He can say false prophet but I doubt that will happen. Either way this works well not just with Muslims but for other religions who believe he was a good man and a prophet only. I believe Jehovahs Witnesses believe he was just a prophet but not the son of God. I could be wrong its been a while since I learned about their beliefs.

It usually shuts them up and sends them walking the other direction.

Pletho

thanks. and glad you have the balls to admit this

I'd say if you read my posts I don't lack balls! LOL I am brutely honest as best as I can be. I just go against the grain of the majority of people including mainstream Christian views.

Pletho

God can exist without being logically proven to do so. We're assuming 1 and 12, but they're not contradictions.

The point is that if 1 and 12 are true, believing in God is risky, which is the opposite of what many religious people tell you - "God doesn't need to prove himself to anybody, use faith instead of logic to find God, etc."

I claimed that 12 is challenging (not contradicting) the premises, and when this is combined with 1 and 13 it's a pretty bad argument.

It doesn't even have anything to do with the actual content of the argument:

Assertion: P is true
Assertion: There is no logical proof of P
Assertion: Believing in a proposition for which there is no logical proof is an illogical action.

Implication: It is illogical to believe P (despite P being true by assumption)

It's just an empty argument that goes nowhere.

Keep in mind I am emailing a theist friend. This logical parody is only interesting to him if we assume God exists.

It only sounds like an empty argument because people usually agree that believing in things that haven't been logically shown to be true is silly. The implication of the OP is mainly that since it's illogical, you shouldn't do it, which many theists disagree with.

I wish I knew how to make this sentence make sense.

Even if I accepted the statement "people usually agree believing... is silly" (which I don't think is actually true -- many people I know would see right through it), I don't see why this would make the original argument "only sound like an empty argument."

I don't think you need to be a theist to disagree with the statement. I think the implication is simply false. Who believes in the law of the excluded middle? Who has "logically shown" it to be true?

I think it's true by induction or by definition. But to your general point, I don't "believe" in logic. I just assume it to be true. Or maybe more accurately, I just use it because I like the results.

The problem with this is that you're assuming the bible is the correct version of Jesus's words. The refutation to this would be to say that it was not Jesus that said these things, but it was added by people who were led to worship him instead of God because of his charisma or whatever.

Unless Muslims acknowledge that that's what Jesus said. Then they're screwed.

I would like to know the distinction between "believing" in logic and "assuming" it is true.

This method of determining whether to accept something is true applies just as well to many religious beliefs.

No more time. I'll get to this one and the rest of the posts tomorrow.

For one thing, I don't care whether it's actually true or not, and I admit I have no absolute "proof" of it. Again, I only use it because it's the best thing I've found for making decisions, but if something else comes along I'm pretty open-minded.


If you want to assume God exists because it makes you happy, and you're not hurting anyone, fine by me. Doesn't make it true or logical though.

Can you give me an example of logic being used to "make a decision"?

To save some time, let me tell you where I'm going. I'm going to accuse you of injecting arbitrary truth statements into your formal logical system, thereby showing that the following statement under your understanding of the nature of "logic" is equivalent to saying that "logic is illogical."

I have no idea what you're talking about. Obviously you need assumptions or premises to use logic because logic doesn't create information on it's own. So I'd use the premises that I like chocolate and I have some spare time to conclude that I should go buy some chocolate.

Same thing with math. I can't "prove" that 1+1=2, but it fits with my perception of the world and helps me understand and benefit from it, so I use it. Through this, I then conclude that 2+2=4. Since most everyone shares this assumption and perception, I feel comfortable saying that 2+2=4 is "true," keeping in mind that since we don't know about the absolute nature of the universe, it's only true relative to the first assumption.

Logic and math are in our society not necessarily because they're true, but because they're useful. They describe the world around us, help us solve problems, and make accurate predictions. Can you say the same thing about God? Why would I assume him the same way that I assume 1+1=2?

How is this a "logical" decision-making process? If this is a "logical" decision-making process, then any time you have spare time, you would conclude that you should go buy some chocolate. Maybe you actually do this, but it's highly doubtful.

It only fits with your perception of the world because this is what everyone else has told you about "1" and "2" and "4" and "+".

A very large number of theists would say that assumptions about God (and particular, Christian theists who make assumptions about the Bible) would say that their belief system describes the world around them, helps them to solve problems, and make accurate predictions (in particular, predictions about how people may perceive various statements and outcomes of various interpersonal relationships).

To follow this thought a little further, for some their understanding of God was conditioned in much the same way you were conditioned to understand "1+1=2."

I didn't list all of the inputs because I didn't think it was necessary to make my point. If you want to get technical, I would say that whenever I am hungry, have a craving for chocolate, have some spare time, and don't currently prefer another food, I go buy some. Still not sure what your point is.



I agree that the symbols are unimportant, only the concepts are. However, I think I could have came with the concept of addition on my own (another contrast with the Christian God), even if I used a circle for a "plus sign" instead.



I am arguing that religion describes the world in an inferior way compared to science, math, and logic, and because of that, am hoping to decondition some of the theists from their beliefs.

You're saying that your decision is "logical" but you're basing your logic on whims of the moment ("I'm hungry." "I want chocolate."). In other words, your hypotheses for deductive reasoning are in a constant state of flux. I'm claiming that your "logical" decisions are not really all that "logical." Given that there are a fairly large number of impulses acting in your head and on your body at any particular moment, your decision-making process is almost certainly not based on a rigid logical structure. Your brain necessarily ignores tons of information so that it is actually able to make a decision. This is not logic at work.

You're hardly making an argument at this point. It looks more like an assertion. And you're hardly demonstrating that you are using "logic" (or "math" or "science") in a superior manner.

None of what you said supports your last sentence. Yes, my logic is partially based on what emotions I'm feeling at the time. Yes, those inputs are in a state of flux. But so what? The premises that exist at the time are the ones I use to make my decision. The ones that my brain ignores are irrelevant or they would be taken into account. How is this not logic?



Yeah no kidding. I'm not going to list all of the reasons I don't believe in God in this thread. But I think nearly every post by an atheist in this forum is used to argue this point. Name your criteria and start another thread if you wish.

I'm getting a little bored going around in circles with you. I don't know why you keep trying to equate math and science with religion, but it's not going to work because not being able to prove that something is 100% true is not the same as "having faith" in it. Faith implies an emotional investment, a personal trust in its veracity, a belief in it's truth regardless of evidence, but I don't have any of those feelings towards 1+1=2, which I use because it helps me figure out how much to pay at the grocery store and make money at poker and whether or not it's "absolutely true" is unimportant to me.

My intent was to point out to you that your understanding of "logic" leads to the conclusion that "logic is illogical." The fact that you called it "my logic" is further indication that your conception of logic is not actually logical. Rather, it's merely a decision-making heuristic that you are trying to pass off as "logic" by justifying your decisions based on your arbitrary perceptions at the moment.

Here is your claim:

You are trying to deny other people's ability to make arbitrary assumptions and impulses and dismissing them as illogical, but you are saying that your logical decision making process is based on arbitrary assumptions and impulses. So which is it?

Your logic is highly illogical.

Where did I do this? I demonstrated that your formulation of "logic" can be done in a parallel manner with some theists' belief in God. You then made a comparative statement about one being inferior to the other (in fact, you said you were "arguing" this, but there is no argument that has been made).

* Faith implies an emotional investment: False
* Faith implies a personal trust in its veracity: True
* Faith implies A belief in its truth regardless of evidence: False

Where you do get these implications? Is this more of your logic based on arbitrary feelings at the moment?