Felipe Contreras

Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
 -  24.9.2011  -  Julkinen
Think like an atheist: “A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”

http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/09/21/cognitive-style-tends-to-predict-religious-conviction/29646.html
A new series of studies provide insights on why some people have stronger religious beliefs than others. Harvard University researchers believe the answer is
+7
5 jakoa  -  Alejandro Godoy, Fabio Erculiani, Luca Barbato, Prabhakar TVja Sunil Thaha
107 kommenttia
Käyttäjän Måns Rullgård profiilikuva
Måns Rullgård  -  So religion is illogical. Who could ever have guessed?
24.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  This is my favorite quote :)

“How people think — or fail to think — about the prices of bats and balls is reflected in their thinking, and ultimately their convictions, about the metaphysical order of the universe,”
24.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Mikhail Zabaluev profiilikuva
Mikhail Zabaluev  -  Heh, I've used "intuitive thinking style" as a polite/sarcastic euphemism before.
24.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  It seems to hold with me as well: I'm religious, and I believe I'm more of the intuitive type, as I usually get very intuitive answers to questions (and indeed, initially I got to think that the ball costed 0.10 pounds) -- however, I always reflect on my answers later, and amend them accordingly.

And saying that that article gets to the conclusion that religion is illogical means not having being logic at all -- sorry Måns, that seems to be you :-)
25.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Måns Rullgård profiilikuva
Måns Rullgård  -  All right, I'll bite. +Alberto Mardegan can you logically justify your belief in whatever it is you believe in? Don't get me wrong. Lack of a logical justification doesn't necessarily mean something isn't worthwhile. For instance, there is no logical reason for music to be pleasing to the ear, yet I do enjoy listening to it.
25.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Vladimir Pantelic profiilikuva
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  Thanks +Måns Rullgård for biting! :-) I didn't claim that religion is logic, or that it is not illogic: I was blaming the fact that you seemed to imply that the article was proving that religion is illogic. I first read your comment before reading the article, so I thought: "Oh, this article proves that religion is illogical! I must read it!" -- and when I found that it was not the case, I wrote my comment to you (the article is indeed rather interesting and I'm glad I read it, but that's another issue).

About my belief (I'm Christian) I can indeed justify it logically, in the sense that so far I've found logical justifications to what I believe in -- not in the sense that I could enter a debate and convince everyone that my religion is "true", but rather in the sense that I didn't find any logical faults or incompatibilities with what science says.
For instance the most debated issue, creationism vs evolution, can be solved in a number of ways: I personally don't take the Bible literally (and indeed, if one takes the old Testament literally, logic won't be his friend) and I believe that the Genesis is just an allegoric tale -- but you can even solve the issue by saying that indeed the world was created a few thousands year ago, and God populated the Earth with people and animals, and fossils, so that we could still find a (wrong) scientific explanation for it. As far as I know, the world could have been created just yesterday, and our memories are filled with whatever God has put into them.

The above is just an example; if you have some other specific cases of something you find to be illogical, feel free to ask. :-)
(but indeed, once you assume that God can anything, you can logically justify really everything)
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  "but you can even solve the issue by saying that indeed the world was created a few thousands year ago, and God populated the Earth with people and animals, and fossils, so that we could still find a (wrong) scientific explanation for it. As far as I know, the world could have been created just yesterday, and our memories are filled with whatever God has put into them."

Oh, I see we're making stuff up, here! Fun! :) Do you understand that the part I quoted is a fallacy solved by the principle of the Occam's razor?

Next you are going to say that the Sun does revolve around the Earth, because you know, one could write equations that make that work, and it would be just as valid a physical model as the Copernican one.

Then you're going to say that the Earth is flat, because you can quite easily devise a physical model in which the warping of the space-time makes it so that all the spheres are actually flat, and what look like sphere are in reality a four-dimensional object.

Sorry, but that's not how logic works. That, instead, is the work of a mind desperately trying to cling on Bronze Age believes that were sadly shoved into it when it was the mind of a child.

But who am I kidding. There's no arguing with somebody that rejects logic as the basis of the argument. To quote an anonymous, "Arguing with a creationist is like playing chess with a pigeon. It'll knock over the pieces, crap on the board, and fly back to its flock to claim victory."
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Salvatore Iovene "Do you understand that the part I quoted is a fallacy solved by the principle of the Occam's razor?"

It's not a fallacy, until you prove it is. Occam's razor doesn't prove anything. I'm sorry, but that's not how logic works.
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  +Alberto Mardegan, you're a mathematician. You know very well that a negative cannot be proven. And you know upon whom the burden of proof lies.

No wait, I'll state it, because you don't talk like you know: it lies on you. Because you're the one making the claim.

Do I really have to go on and debunk every single (non) argument you might have while there's plenty of literature on the web?
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Salvatore Iovene No dear, you are confused. You made a claim: "the part I quoted is a fallacy", and you have to prove it. What I did say is that, AFAIK, the world could have been created yesterday -- I honestly don't believe it was, but I'm claiming that it is a possibility, and I gave a logical (though unlikely) explanation of how it could match the scientific evidence.
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  Oh I'm sorry, I was talking about the claim about the existence of a Higher Being.

I don't have to prove your proposition is a fallacy. In fact, your proposition is not true before you prove it is.

But I see you're taking it back. :)
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Salvatore Iovene You are changing the topic and falsely claiming I wrote something which I never wrote.
Please re-read this discussion, and tell me:
- Did I claim that God exists?
- Did I claim that the world was created according to the Genesis's accounting?
- Did I claim that I can prove any of the above?
- What, of all the things I wrote in this discussion, can you prove being false?

You, and only you, are the one who made bold statements which cannot be proved. I just wrote that I'm Christian (and therefore I believe in God), but I did not (and never will) claim that it is anything more than a personal belief. I know perfectly well that I cannot prove it.
The reason why I jumped into this thread is because I got the impression that +Måns Rullgård were saying that the article claims that religion is illogic, while it doesn't (and please, don't misunderstand me again, saying that I said that "religion is not illogic" -- I didn't. What I indeed claim is that, if I assume that the Christian god exists, I cannot find any scientific evidence which, through the means of logic, can prove that my original assumption is wrong).

"But I see you're taking it back."

What am I taking back?
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan What the study suggests is that religious people tend to be happy with intuitive thinking; IOW, they are happy with explanations that are not sound.

Religion is illogical, that's easy to show, and the findings of the article fit this notion. Mans didn't claim the article said anything, he was just joking.

Let my try to illustrate the religious way of thinking. Say I'm an Elvinist, I believe the purpose of the universe was the creation of Elvis, and now, since Elvis is dead, the universe is decaying into oblivion. I, like you, can find convoluted explanations for every rebuttal. At the end of the day, nobody can prove that is not true, just like nobody can prove there is no God, or that there are no fairies, or that there isn't a China teapot orbiting between Mars and The Earth, or that the center of Jupiter isn't made of marshmallow. That doesn't make any of these claims logical.

It's illogical to believe in something without evidence, and your religion, just like every other religion can't provide evidence, that's why you have so many of them. If there was evidence in favor of your particular religion, scientists would look at it, and make studies, and then determine whether or not your religion is likely to be true. But that's not the case, no religion has evidence of anything, that's why they insist on faith.
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
+1
  
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras I agree with all what you wrote. :-)
I just hope that no one will fall prey of intuitive thinking and from "religion is illogic" conclude that "Religious people don't have/use logic" or "Logic contradicts religion".
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  +Alberto Mardegan yes, you did claim God exists, in fact you identified yourself as a Christian (I don't know why, because you seem to discredit the foundation of the Christian faith, that is the Bible.)

Again, I don't need to prove anything being false, and I can't, because you can't prove a negative. Are you sure you are a mathematician? The burden of proof, I repeat, is on you (and I'm talking about the proof of the existence of the Higher Being that the Christian faith - which you proclaim you adhere to - claims.)

Quoting you: "What I indeed claim is that, if I assume that the Christian god exists, I cannot find any scientific evidence which, through the means of logic, can prove that my original assumption is wrong)."

Of course you cannot find proof against something. Still... if your god is almighty, all knowing and benevolent, whence evil cometh fro?
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  "Logic contradicts religion".

I will argue that logic does contradict religion. At least the big three Abrahamic ones. Why don't we be done and you just reach the inevitable end of this argument, where you just say "But it's a matter of faith?"

Religion is not based on logic, nor evidence, nor even good common sense. Gods (pun intended), if nobody ever heard of the Bible or the Quran, and you were the first one to find a Bible in some old dusty library unearthed at some archaeological site, and you were the first man to ever read it, do you think you would say "Wow! This stuff makes perfect sense! I'm so convinced!"

Of course not! You would disregard it as the mythical Bronze Age nonsense as it is. The reason you don't, is that you were brainwashed since childhood.

Whether you care to admit it or not, is something you need to take upon your therapist. :)
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan Of course. People can have and use logic, and be religious. Just like they can stay with a crazy girlfriend against all reason. But they are not being logical in that particular instance.

In order to be religious you have to suspend your critical faculties. That's why it's more difficult for logical persons to believe in religion than it is for unreasonable ones.

But you have to admit that whatever your reasons are for believing in a religion, they have nothing to do with logic, and without logic, it's certainly easier to believe in religion.
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  Guys, I've really have a hard time understanding you. On one side we all agree that you cannot prove that God exist, and that you cannot prove that it doesn't. So, why would believing that God exists defy logic?

+Felipe Contreras you don't have to suspend your critical faculties to be religious. If someone comes to me and tells me a statement which I cannot immediately discharge as false, I reply: "Ok, let's suppose it is as you say. What's next?". If at the end of the reasoning I don't find any absurd, of course I can still continue not to believe his initial statement, if it's irrelevant to me. If, on the other hand, I think that believing that statement can make me feel a bit better in some ways, then I might even start believing it.
But in any case, that guy is not being illogic or lacking critical faculty, as long as no fault is found in his reasoning. Do we agree on this?
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  No, we can't all agree that you can't prove that gods exist. Of course you could prove that: all it would take is that one of them showed up, be it Yaweh, Allah, Thor, Zeus, or what have you.
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Salvatore Iovene One did (according to what I believe), but we didn't witness it, and the event can not be proved by any means. So let's just reason with what we have now: no proofs. :-)

Anyway, is this the only thing we don't agree on? If so, we are quite settled, but I doubt it :-)
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  There's more we don't agree on, iirc. We are claiming that being a follower of one of the big three religions (I don't speak for the others because I don't know their claims well) means taking logic out for a walk and "forgetting" it out when one comes back.
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Måns Rullgård profiilikuva
Måns Rullgård  -  A statement which can be neither proven nor disproven is, by definition, not logical. Religious statements generally fall into this category; the core notion of one or more gods certainly does. Ergo, religion is not logical.
26.9.2011   
+2
  
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  "We are claiming that being a follower of one of the big three religions (I don't speak for the others because I don't know their claims well) means taking logic out for a walk and "forgetting" it out when one comes back."
Great, so you'll surely be able to tell me why you think so (if you don't want to actually prove the above, which would be even better).

Would your reasoning still be the same, if the core of the question was another non-demonstrable statement? That is, if instead of "God exists" we put "My wife thinks I'm smart". Would believing the latter statement also require taking logic out for a walk and "forgetting" it out when one comes back?
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  Your wife thinking you are smart is an easily testable hypothesis. There are a number of ways in which we could ascertain the truth or falsity of such a hypothesis. We might ask here and analyze her response.

Believing it without evidence, though, you will agree, is not logical.

Believing unsupported claims is a failure to apply logic. Erlier in this conversation you have said:

"About my belief (I'm Christian) I can indeed justify it logically, in the sense that so far I've found logical justifications to what I believe in -- not in the sense that I could enter a debate and convince everyone that my religion is "true", but rather in the sense that I didn't find any logical faults or incompatibilities with what science says."

You are contradicting yourself there: you say that you can justify it logically, and your justification is actually the lack of logical faults or incompatibility with science.

What if I told you I believed in unicorns? Certainly the existence of unicorns is not a logical impossibility. They could be horses that have evolved a horn. Sure, nobody has ever seen one, and there's no evidence in the fossil records, but it's not an hypothesis that is incompatible with science (remember, kids: lack of evidence does not mean evidence of lack) nor one that is logically impossible.

On the other hand, there are several logical fallacies with the hypothesis of the existence of a Supreme Being. Some of them can be rebuked using particularly convoluted "reasoning", but the the Occam's razor rule, they can be eliminated.

There obvious logical impossibility, such as:

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?
Or anyway the obvious fact that you don't need to resort to a Supreme Creator to explain the universe, because the Creator would need his own Creator, and so on ad infinitum.

Or course I know that all you can say is "The Lord works in mysterious ways", your way to piss on the chessboard, swallow my King, choke a little, then go back to the flock claiming victory.
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Måns Rullgård profiilikuva
Måns Rullgård  -  How your wife rates your intelligence could be determined by simply asking her, although she might not be telling the truth. A better idea of her opinion might be obtained by observing her statements and actions over a period of time. If she thinks you're stupid, she'll likely be taking precautions to protect herself (and possibly you) from the effects of the (supposed) stupidity, whereas if she thinks you're smart, she will trust you to handle things yourself. You still cannot be absolutely certain about her opinion, of course, but you will have some foundation from which to make a logical deduction.
26.9.2011   
+1
  
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  Good explanation, Måns. And that's pretty much how science works. In all other sciences than math (the only one in which you can really prove things), what you really do is:

1) Collect data (facts)
2) Create model that represent data (e.g. equations)
3) Perform tests
4) Fix your model slightly so that its predictions match the test better
5) GOTO 3

If at some point a test is made that contradicts the predictions of the model (aka theory), then the model is wrong and we go back to the drawing table.

A scientific theory, in order to be able to be defined as such, must be testable.

The approach taken by religion is:

1) Come to conclusion
2) Ignore all facts
3) Bliss
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan The fact that you cannot prove that something doesn't exist, doesn't mean that it's logical to believe in it. Believing in something that has no proof is illogical.

Strictly speaking, you cannot disprove anything. Science is always open to possibilities. Like neutrinos traveling faster than light.

I cannot prove to you that if you throw a coin in the air on Earth, it will always fall down. There might be some strange law in the universe that makes it sometimes go up.

It is logical to accept the possibility that God may exist, or any of my other strange examples, what is not logical is to base your entire philosophy of life on a claim that might very well not be true. In fact, if you define God as the judeo-christian god, chances are it doesn't exist; it's paradoxical.

Personally, I would say it's less than 10% probability that such a judeo-christian god exists, but let's assume that the chance is 50%. Would you be willing to bet your life in a coin toss? I most certainly would not.

Let's put it the other way around; do you accept the possibility that God might not exist? If so, why would you base your entire life in the assumption that it does?
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Salvatore Iovene "Your wife thinking you are smart is an easily testable hypothesis."

But as +Måns Rullgård said, it's not something you can prove for sure.

> Believing it without evidence, though, you will agree, is not logical.

You probably have plenty of evidence which leads you to think that your wife thinks you are intelligent. Still, you cannot prove that she thinks you are intelligent. So, do you claim that believing that your wife thinks that you are intelligent is not logical?

> "About my belief (I'm Christian) I can indeed justify it logically, in the sense that so far I've found logical justifications to what I believe in -- not in the sense that I could enter a debate and convince everyone that my religion is "true", but rather in the sense that I didn't find any logical faults or incompatibilities with what science says."
>
> You are contradicting yourself there: you say that you can justify it logically, and your justification is actually the lack of logical faults or incompatibility with science.

"justifying" != "demonstrating"
In case we don't agree on the meaning of "to justify" (or if I used it incorrectly), I also clearly wrote what I mean with it, starting from "not in the sense".

> What if I told you I believed in unicorns? Certainly the existence of unicorns is not a logical impossibility. They could be horses that have evolved a horn. Sure, nobody has ever seen one, and there's no evidence in the fossil records, but it's not an hypothesis that is incompatible with science (remember, kids: lack of evidence does not mean evidence of lack) nor one that is logically impossible.

I completely agree, and I've already stated my position on the issue: "If at the end of the reasoning I don't find any absurd, of course I can still continue not to believe his initial statement, if it's irrelevant to me.". But if you want to believe in unicorns, that doesn't certainly fights against logic. And TBH, if the universe is infinite, the probability that unicorns exist is quite close to 1.

> On the other hand, there are several logical fallacies with the hypothesis of the existence of a Supreme Being. Some of them can be rebuked using particularly convoluted "reasoning", but the the Occam's razor rule, they can be eliminated.

Do you know how many applications does the Occam's razor have in logics, mathematics or even natural science (where by "application" I mean that it can be used to prove something)? Or do you even know what it is?

> There obvious logical impossibility, such as:
>
> 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?
> Or anyway the obvious fact that you don't need to resort to a Supreme Creator to explain the universe, because the Creator would need his own Creator, and so on ad infinitum.

> Or course I know that all you can say is "The Lord works in mysterious ways", your way to piss on the chessboard, swallow my King, choke a little, then go back to the flock claiming victory.

You are pissing on the chessboard: the fact that we cannot understand God's reasoning is one of the assumptions of the Christian religion, so you cannot complain about it. Anyway, I'll try to answer those questions, as a human -- I promise to come back with God's answers later on :-)
He's not willing, but he is able. The syllogism about him being malevolent is totally wrong, and the guy who wrote it lost his logic for a little while. Compare with:

Is your mom willing to prevent you from cutting your veins, but not able?
Is she able, but not willing? Then she is malevolent.

And suppose that your mom could prevent you from cutting your veins. Is she malevolent? No, she just cares a lot about your free will.
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  I don't intend to escape the discussion, which I find extremely interesting. I just want to warn you that I don't have infinite time, so please don't take my late answering as a running away: I'll answer all the points, on a FIFO order, according to my time. :-)
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  Is your mom willing to prevent you from cutting your veins, but not able? Is she able, but not willing? Then she is malevolent.

And suppose that your mom could prevent you from cutting your veins. Is she malevolent? No, she just cares a lot about your free will.

That is a bunch of nonsense. No mom would ever allow her children to cut his/her veins, they would have to be crazy.

But I will throw a much simpler and obvious impossibility; God can't be both just and merciful at the same time, because mercy is by definition the suspension of justice.

Here's another one; if you have free will, then God doesn't know what you are going to do next, and if he doesn't know something, he is not all knowing.
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
+1
  
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  Wow, +Alberto Mardegan, where do I begin? Your post is a machine gun source of non-sequiturs.

> But as +Måns Rullgård said, it's not something you can prove for sure.

As I have said, except for math, things cannot be "proven" in science. This can have an amount of supporting evidence. If the evidence is deemed "enough", the hypothesis is believed.

I can collect evidence by observing your wife. That can lead to either conclusive or inconclusive evidence. Either way, it's a hypothesis completely different than that of god's existence.

> And TBH, if the universe is infinite, the probability that unicorns exist is quite close to 1.

Then we should believe in everything! Yay, Santa exists! The Tooth Fairy! Everything exists! I suppose I should now change my life to accommodate this new found knowledge of mine. I suppose that there's a probability close to 1 that Almighty Unicorns exist... what if they judge my action? I wonder what they think of gay marriage...

Do you see the absurdity, my dear friend?

> Do you know how many applications does the Occam's razor have in logics, mathematics or even natural science (where by "application" I mean that it can be used to prove something)? Or do you even know what it is?

I'm using the common people's definition of Occam's razor, and that is to cut the superfluous and take the path of least resistance.

If you have to resort to convoluted "logic" to explain something, whilst there exist another explanation which is far less convoluted, I lean towards the simplest explanation.

Tell me, who created your God? Are you going to say that He always existed? Then why can't it be that the universe also existed? It's like you're writing unnecessary layers of libraries in your code :)

> the fact that we cannot understand God's reasoning is one of the assumptions of the Christian religion, so you cannot complain about it.

Just like I thought :) "He works in mysterious ways", end of the discussions, chess pieces on the ground.

> He's not willing, but he is able. The syllogism about him being malevolent is totally wrong, and the guy who wrote it lost his logic for a little while.

That guy was Epicurus, but whatever, I'm not trying to use arguments ab auctoritate. Are you one of those who says "Yeah, the earthquake killed fifty thousands, but THANK GOD some were miraculously spared!"? Was God able to prevent the earthquake? Then why didn't He?


>I s your mom willing to prevent you from cutting your veins, but not able? Is she able, but not willing? Then she is malevolent.

The mother of somebody who commits suicide is obviously willing to prevent it, but unable (she was out of the house at the time, perhaps). Congratulation, you have come to your first logical conclusion in this conversation: that mother is not omnipotent! :) No wait, you didn't come to that either :-/


See, the thing is, it's impossible for this discussion to result in you changing your mind, because, as I have said, you have sadly been brainwashed since childhood. All we've got so far from you is non sequiturs and convoluted explanations.

It really all boils down to a simple matter: you are making a claim (the Christian God exists). We, on the other hand, are not convinced by that claim, because we haven't seen supporting evidence.

This society has been embroiled with the consequences of the pervasive actions of the followers of religions; all of this on the basis of unsupported claims.

What good is it to discuss, when you are still stuck at square zero, unable to support your claim?

Had the claim been any other (anything other than what was burned in your min when you were a child) you'd be able to snap out of it, realize it doesn't make any sense, and say something like "Oh wait a second, I ought to change my mind on this."

If you want to build a house, you ought to build your foundations first. When this foundations are shaky, your house will be unsupported.

Let's talk when you have evidence supporting your claims.
26.9.2011   
+1
  
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Måns Rullgård Thanks for writing things down so clearly, and without insulting. :-)

"You still cannot be absolutely certain about her opinion, of course, but you will have some foundation from which to make a logical deduction."

Why is this deduction logical? What is the difference between this claim ("your wife etc etc") and a claim that has no evidence at all? Or between this and something which has very little (and highly debated) evidence, such as Jesus's life and preachings?

I think that in all these cases you take an assumption, you add from 0 to X facts supporting this, and apply logic. As long as you make no logic mistakes, why would any of these claims be more logic than another?
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Salvatore Iovene The approach taken by religion is:
>
> 1) Come to conclusion
> 2) Ignore all facts
> 3) Bliss

Maybe some religions do that. But that's not me. Look:
> 1) Collect data (facts)

My mum told me that Jesus existed, and that He revealed himself as son of God, etc. etc. (the fact that my mum and a bunch of other people told me this is a fact).

> 2) Create model that represent data (e.g. equations)

Christian religion is the model.

> 3) Perform tests

Doesn't apply (if you can suggest some tests, you are welcome!).

> 4) Fix your model slightly so that its predictions match the test better

No test results, no needs to adjust the model.

> 5) GOTO 3
> If at some point a test is made that contradicts the predictions of the model (aka theory), then the model is wrong and we go back to the drawing table.
>
> A scientific theory, in order to be able to be defined as such, must be testable.

Religion is not a scientific theory, and it doesn't want it to be defined as such.
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  >> 2) Create model that represent data (e.g. equations)

>Christian religion is the model.

Thats supposed to be a joke, right?
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  If not, how can something so disputed be a model for anything? Or maybe by 'Christianity' you mean 'Catholicism' ?
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Alberto Mardegan you said there is no evidence to suggest either the existance or inexistance of God. If you keep the definition of God vague-enough, there can't possibly be any evidence against that despite of what the truth really is.

However, when people provide a definition, its very easy to find evidence. That doesn't mean the religious mind will be capable of accepting it of course.

For example, Major religions define God as all-powerful, very loving and caring figure who created this universe. However, lives of most of the animals on this planet (not just humans) is full of pain and misery. Actually the whole cycle of life on this planet depends on predators eating their prey. Focusing on humans, one must not forget how much suffering people have suffered only on his name alone through out the history. For a non-believer that is sufficient evidence to conclude that an entity with the qualities I declared above do not exist.

For more evidence against God presented in a very funny way, please watch some videos of Eddie Izzard on this subject. :)
26.9.2011   
+1
  
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras > Is your mom willing to prevent you from cutting your veins, but not able? Is she able, but not willing? Then she is malevolent.
And suppose that your mom could prevent you from cutting your veins. Is she malevolent? No, she just cares a lot about your free will.

> That is a bunch of nonsense. No mom would ever allow her children to cut his/her veins, they would have to be crazy.

I'm sure you perfectly understood my point, you are just trying to escape it. Is it better if we replace the "mom" with a "close friend"?

> But I will throw a much simpler and obvious impossibility; God can't be both just and merciful at the same time, because mercy is by definition the suspension of justice.

We are coming into theology now. Nothing wrong about it, but I'm not a theologist and I must say in advance that I might not have all the answers to your questions -- however, if you are curious to know my opinions, you are indeed welcome to continue asking.
(to the sake of this discussion about religion and being logic and illogic, it would be much simpler if we merely concentrate ourselves on the claim "God exists")

Here's what I think: God revealed himself several times during human history, and each time he revealed himself in such ways that men could understand his revelations. Now, I don't even know the lines of the Bible where it's written that God is just and merciful, but we could easily workaround the apparent contradiction by saying that his justice doesn't follow the human rules: for instance, Christian religion says that if you repent all your sins just before dying, you might be saved -- while in human society, this is generally not the case, for a series of good reason which, however, don't apply to God (i.e.: the judge cannot know if you actually repented, and sparing you from your charge might be a bad example for others). So, God is "merciful" compared to human laws, while in fact he's just.

This is how I see it; a theologist might heavily disagree with me though :-)

> Here's another one; if you have free will, then God doesn't know what you are going to do next, and if he doesn't know something, he is not all knowing.

He knows what you are going to do next, but you can still choose not to do it. I don't see the contradiction here. We know that Caesar crossed the Rubicon river, but the fact that we know it, doesn't deny Caesar's free will.
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras Sorry, with all the messages in this thread, I forgot to reply to one. Please remind me, if I skip some other messages: the last thing I want, is being accused of skipping the difficult questions :-)

> The fact that you cannot prove that something doesn't exist, doesn't mean that it's logical to believe in it.

Agreed.

> Believing in something that has no proof is illogical.

Well, I wouldn't use the term "illogical": for me, illogical is something which has a wrong logic, and not something for which logic cannot be applied. Thinking of this, I now understand that the use of the term "illogical" at the beginning of this discussion is what upset me.
But in a way you comfort me: so, you agree that if somebody tells you: "<person> thinks I'm <adjective>" you can tell him "you are being illogical"?
If so, we are both fine and we can end the discussion here. (I personally wouldn't use the term "illogical" in this case, as I find it a bit offensive, but as long as we are clear on the meaning, it's fine)

> Strictly speaking, you cannot disprove anything. Science is always open to possibilities. Like neutrinos traveling faster than light.
> I cannot prove to you that if you throw a coin in the air on Earth, it will always fall down. There might be some strange law in the universe that makes it sometimes go up.

+1

> It is logical to accept the possibility that God may exist, or any of my other strange examples, what is not logical is to base your entire philosophy of life on a claim that might very well not be true.

Why, if it makes me feel well?

> In fact, if you define God as the judeo-christian god, chances are it doesn't exist; it's paradoxical.

I don't understand this. But again, we might fall into theology -- in any case I agree, indeed there are chances it doesn't exist.

> Personally, I would say it's less than 10% probability that such a judeo-christian god exists, but let's assume that the chance is 50%. Would you be willing to bet your life in a coin toss? I most certainly would not.

What is "bet your life"? Many non-religious people live a life to Jesus's preachings than many religious people, and are quite happy with it. And the other way round holds too; what I want to say, is that belief doesn't always reflect on one's life.

> Let's put it the other way around; do you accept the possibility that God might not exist?

Mathematically, yes.

> If so, why would you base your entire life in the assumption that it does?

Because I like Jesus's preachings, and I think they lead to a better mankind (please don't point me at history, or even at the current situation of the Catholic search: that was and is driven by greed and power).
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Riku Voipio profiilikuva
Riku Voipio  -  On a completely different track, what is it in G+ that makes people argue a lot more in it than in facebook or twitter? :P This is Usenet re-invented..
26.9.2011   
+3
  
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan You are conveniently avoiding my important questions, so I'm going to avoid replying to anything else until you answer:

Do you accept the possibility that God might not exist?
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Zeeshan Ali > If not, how can something so disputed be a model for anything? Or maybe by 'Christianity' you mean 'Catholicism' ?

I actually mean "my religion". :-) It's Catholic with some variations: I'm extremely critic of what men have been saying after Jesus's times (especially because, as you wrote, men have been disputing in several occasions).

I'm not going to reply on the rest of your message, the reason being that I agree with you. :-)
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras > You are conveniently avoiding my important questions, so I'm going to avoid replying to anything else until you answer:
>
> Do you accept the possibility that God might not exist?

I'm definitely not evading it, I answered. Please check back (for the record, the answer is "yes").
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Mikhail Zabaluev profiilikuva
Mikhail Zabaluev  -  Between this and getting banned in GNOME, Felipe is the official firebrand of my Google+ circles.
26.9.2011   
+1
  
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  +Alberto Mardegan
>> 1) Collect data (facts)
>My mum told me that Jesus existed, and that He revealed himself as son of God, etc. etc. (the fact that my mum and a bunch of other people told me this is a fact).

Yeah, finally we reach the bottom of the well and the reason for your being illogical. You don't know what facts are!

As I said, this discussion cannot proceed (and it shouldn't, because it would build up on shaky premises) until you answer to my point (quoted below):

It really all boils down to a simple matter: you are making a claim (the Christian God exists). We, on the other hand, are not convinced by that claim, because we haven't seen supporting evidence.

So where is the evidence?
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Salvatore Iovene
> Yeah, finally we reach the bottom of the well and the reason for your being illogical. You don't know what facts are!

You are talking about facts in the context of natural science, while I'm keeping the discussion on the logic plane. Here, "My mum told me that Jesus existed" is a fact. But you are asking for natural facts that you can observe yourself. And I'm sorry, unfortunately on this side you won't get anything unless God decides to reveal itself to you.
Even Fatima's Miracle of the Sun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun is not a valid scientific evidence, because you didn't witness it yourself, and because it's not reproducible. Again, I'm very sorry, but there's nothing I can do about it.

> As I said, this discussion cannot proceed (and it shouldn't, because it would build up on shaky premises) until you answer to my point (quoted below):

Funny, as you didn't answer to any of my points.

> It really all boils down to a simple matter: you are making a claim (the Christian God exists).

False, I'm not claiming anything! I believe it exist, but that's my personal conviction and I'm not trying to convince you of it!
Please re-read this discussion: it's about me saying that I don't find anything illogic in my religion, and you attacking me for this statement.

> We, on the other hand, are not convinced by that claim, because we haven't seen supporting evidence.
> So where is the evidence?

?? I don't want to convince you... I just want you to accept the fact that I'm a believer, and that there's nothing illogic in that (again, by "illogic" I mean "wrong logic").
Now, can you please go back to the discussion, and reply to those points which are left open?
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  +Alberto Mardegan:
Again, I'm very sorry, but there's nothing I can do about it.

There is something. You could realize that you have been living a delusion, and nothing more than wishful thinking. By your own admission, not only do you not have any evidence, there also can not be any. I beg to disagree (on the latter part). There could be plenty of evidence. You are making a claim (stop saying that you aren't: you are! You believe in the existence of the Christian God, ergo you are making a claim, the claim being that the Christian God exists) about the nature of our universe. There could be plenty of evidence, if your claim had some foundation.

The fact that you don't have any to place under the scrutiny of your peers simply says that, well, you should not be convinced by the claim! And you should say, as I say: "Wow, interesting claim. Too bad that there is not enough evidence, so I'm not really convinced about it. Sure it could be, but as long as no evidence comes forward, I shall stay in the default status, that is non-believing."

I don't want to convince you... I just want to accept the fact that I'm a believer

Of course I accept it, it's right in my face. I only weep for your future children, brainwashed since young age. Those poor unborn babies have no hope :(

And I don't care if you're trying to convince me or not. My scientific curiosity begs me to ask you to provide evidence for your claim, or simply admit that there's no reason to believe it.

At least, for the love of God (LOL), stop shoving your religion down the throat of your children. And stop contaminating society with your Bronze Age rules. I cannot simply "accept" your belief, because it has deep and serious consequences on the society I'm part of.

To conclude this post (and other posting for tonight, as I'm going to bed), I can't answer your other points before this one is settled. And I can see it shall not be settled, because "changing one's mind" is not something that stubborn religious believers often do.
26.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan Let me show you systematically why it's illogical (as in wrong logic) to believe in something without evidence.

Belief => hold on to something as true
Evidence => what is used to determine if something is true

believe = evidence.is_compelling()

That's what a logical and reasonable person would do. So, if you run that through some examples:
!earth_is_flat_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
!unicorns_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
!yeti_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
!teapot_orbiting_between_mars_and_earth_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
!yahweh_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
!elvis_is_alive_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe

Note that there's a difference between not believing something, and be absolutely certain something is not true. I can't say with 100% confidence that Elvis is dead, but I certainly won't believe it just because of that, and I would certainly think anybody that does believe that, is illogical.

If you don't want to be told you are being illogical, then don't be illogical; be skeptical about the existence of god.

The fact that you believe something because it makes you feel good is called wishful thinking, and you can certainly do that, but it doesn't make it true, nor logical. And living a life believing god doesn't exist does really make a difference; you have to think long and hard about what you want to do with it, because it's only one you have. Suddenly, being good is not enough, and pretend to talk to dead relatives is pointless; you have to take advantage of the moments you have with people that are still alive, because you would not get another chance after they are gone. Suddenly, life, and what you do with it, is much more important.

If you are truly being honest and accept the possibility that god doesn't exist, why don't you live one year assuming there's no god? Out of your hopefully many decades of life, certainly it couldn't hurt to live one year assuming that the coin toss will land on the other side... Right?
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
+1
  
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Salvatore Iovene Of course I accept it, it's right in my face. I only weep for your future children, brainwashed since young age. Those poor unborn babies have no hope :(

Now, now, don't be hasty. Newer generations tend to improve over the older ones, otherwise we would all be religious ;)

To be fair, it's not brainwashing, it's indoctrination, and not all people are so poignant in the fact that doing bad things means burning in eternal agony. I do hope that Alberto is not going to do that.

But how about this, would you avoid indoctrinating your children into your religion until they are adults? If your believes were truly logical, they would certainly not have any trouble picking the exact same religion you have (which most likely coincides with the one of your parents by pure chance ;P) out from the thousands available. Like career, political inclination, and even sexual preference, they should be able to pick their own religion on their own, when they are able to make their own decisions, right?
26.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Felipe Balbi profiilikuva
Felipe Balbi  -  +Alberto Mardegan
> Even Fatima's Miracle of the Sun http://en.wikipedia.org
> /wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun is not a valid scientific evidence, because
>you didn't witness it yourself, and because it's not reproducible

did you not read the entire article ? Let me quote just a small piece of it below:

"Professor Auguste Meessen of the Institute of Physics, Catholic University of Leuven, has stated sun miracles cannot be taken at face value and that the reported observations were optical effects caused by prolonged staring at the sun."

So, a professor from the Catholic University has said it was only an optical effect. You probably stopped reading after the introduction right ? That's what generally happens with religious folks, they don't want to look into deeper details, otherwise they will disprove their own beliefs.

We have a plethora of evidence for evolution and yet you choose to believe on the only nonsense that has no foundation whatsoever: Religion.

Religion (specially catholic) has created the most demented minds on earth (the priests). When you prevent a human (all in all, an animal like any other, just smarter) to fulfill normal biological needs (like the need to mate, to procreate, to feel pleasure - there are other animals on earth that make sex for pleasure only) you end up creating a demented person. That's why there are so many cases of priests raping little boys.

How can you accept that ? How can you believe in that institution ? How can sleep at night knowing all of that happens ? How can you rest peaceful when you know you believe in something that has no foundation, no evidence ? That's what religion has done to you, they have brainwashed you, prevented you from becoming critical about things so you would do as they wish.

Just think a bit: why is Jesus depicted as a white guy with eyes and curly hair ? That was just a marketing material, a simple propaganda created to make the Feudal overlords to give land to the church in exchange for a place in heaven. Church is a very sick place!!! Religion creates sick people. And at the end of the day, they "don't give a damn about you and your family" (Jordan Maxwell).

If you really think praying will help you achieve anything, why do you even work, eat, sleep, etc ??? You can pray and get all of those.
27.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Luca Barbato profiilikuva
Luca Barbato  -  I think the problem is that wishful thinking, placebo effect, rage strength and such DO work to measurable effect. But in order to work you have to suspend your rationality or have a mind strong enough to achieve that feats by twisting/training your mind in curious ways.

Praying raises your endorphins and changes your brain chemistry in a peculiar way, so does deep meditation to a greater extent...
27.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras
> Let me show you systematically why it's illogical (as in wrong logic) to believe in something without evidence.

We finally come to the point of the discussion. You still didn't answer some question before, but here you state your POV quite clearly. I totally disagree -- and I can prove that your reasoning is wrong (at least, if the world "believe" means the same for both of us):

> Belief => hold on to something as true
> Evidence => what is used to determine if something is true
>
> believe = evidence.is_compelling()

If by "=" you mean "⇔", I disagree: for me, just one way of the implication works: "believe ⇐ evidence.is_compelling()". To put it in English words, I can believe something even if the evidence is not compelling.

You have a nice set of examples here:

> That's what a logical and reasonable person would do. So, if you run that through some examples:
> !earth_is_flat_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
> !unicorns_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
> !yeti_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
> !teapot_orbiting_between_mars_and_earth_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
> !yahweh_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
> !elvis_is_alive_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe

But what about the following? According to your logic (or is it a definition?),
!tomorrow_will_be_cloudy.is_compelling() => don't believe (and suppose that the weather forecast is a tornado with lot of rains for a whole week)
!julius_caesar_was_killed_by_the_senators_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
!caucasian_wisent_are_extinct_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
!earth_revolves_around_sun_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe

And we could actually list pretty much everything which is not mathematics -- or do you want to sit down and define what "compelling evidence" means to you?

> Note that there's a difference between not believing something, and be absolutely certain something is not true. I can't say with 100% confidence that Elvis is dead, but I certainly won't believe it just because of that, and I would certainly think anybody that does believe that, is illogical.

It would be illogical for a guy to say so, only if we all agree on the same rules. If this guy doesn't take experience into accounting (as some philosophers did), then it's not illogic. You can say that it's an astonishing lack of common sense, but you cannot say that it's illogic, unless you prove it. Feel free to try. :-)

> The fact that you believe something because it makes you feel good is called wishful thinking, and you can certainly do that, but it doesn't make it true, nor logical.

Indeed. But it doesn't make it illogical either. I can accept that you call it an insulting lack of common sense, but when you call it illogic you are offending logic, before my religion.

> And living a life believing god doesn't exist does really make a difference; you have to think long and hard about what you want to do with it, because it's only one you have. Suddenly, being good is not enough, and pretend to talk to dead relatives is pointless; you have to take advantage of the moments you have with people that are still alive, because you would not get another chance after they are gone. Suddenly, life, and what you do with it, is much more important.

All this applies to my religion as well; and I would argue, even more -- if I waste my life, I waste my afterlife as well.

> If you are truly being honest and accept the possibility that god doesn't exist, why don't you live one year assuming there's no god? Out of your hopefully many decades of life, certainly it couldn't hurt to live one year assuming that the coin toss will land on the other side... Right?

This might make sense if I felt oppressed by my religion (which I admittedly did, being a kid and partially a teenager -- though I'd rather call it "culture", than "religion"); but now I like to pray. :-)
27.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Salvatore Iovene
> There is something. You could realize that you have been living a delusion, and nothing more than wishful thinking. By your own admission, not only do you not have any evidence, there also can not be any. I beg to disagree (on the latter part). There could be plenty of evidence. You are making a claim (stop saying that you aren't: you are! You believe in the existence of the Christian God, ergo you are making a claim, the claim being that the Christian God exists) about the nature of our universe. There could be plenty of evidence, if your claim had some foundation.

To be picky with language, I didn't make a claim. I usually don't claim things which I cannot prove with logic or common sense. But it doesn't matter, as I indeed could claim that God exists, in the same way that I could claim that my wife thinks that I'm intelligent: that is, not in a scientific dissertation.

About the evidence, you are being completely false. Tell me exactly where did I write that there cannot be evidence for God's existence?
(the statement above is anyway pointless, you are just looking for any defects in my reasoning -- defects which you will eventually find, because I'm not perfect, so you are broadening the topic with irrelevant issues)
What is true, is that given the current evidence about God's existence (at least, those things that are public), it's impossible to prove that it exists.

Oh, please contradict me on the above sentence! ;-)

> The fact that you don't have any to place under the scrutiny of your peers simply says that, well, you should not be convinced by the claim! And you should say, as I say: "Wow, interesting claim. Too bad that there is not enough evidence, so I'm not really convinced about it. Sure it could be, but as long as no evidence comes forward, I shall stay in the default status, that is non-believing."

Non sequitur. I can believe something without having any evidence for it -- it's an assumption.

> Of course I accept it, it's right in my face. I only weep for your future children, brainwashed since young age. Those poor unborn babies have no hope :(

Your sense of superiority is disgusting. By the way, you just made claims with no proof, and according to your reasoning you are being illogical.
(for me it's only arrogant, and luckily I'll be able to prove you that you are wrong, if/when I'll have children)

> And I don't care if you're trying to convince me or not. My scientific curiosity begs me to ask you to provide evidence for your claim, or simply admit that there's no reason to believe it.

Fine, I admit that there's no reason to believe it (as I always did).

> At least, for the love of God (LOL), stop shoving your religion down the throat of your children. And stop contaminating society with your Bronze Age rules. I cannot simply "accept" your belief, because it has deep and serious consequences on the society I'm part of.

OK, since you asked, I stopped shoving my religion down the throat of my 0 children.

> To conclude this post (and other posting for tonight, as I'm going to bed), I can't answer your other points before this one is settled. And I can see it shall not be settled, because "changing one's mind" is not something that stubborn religious believers often do.

Very convenient.
BTW, I already gave you some evidence (though, as I said, I don't need any in order to believe something and not being called "illogical"), but you masterfully ignored it.
27.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Alberto Mardegan just one thing: In the absence of sufficient evidence to back-up an assertion, it is logical to assume the negation of that assertion even if there is no evidence to support the negation of the assertion either. Read some introductory book on 'Logic' please.
27.9.2011 (muokattu)   
+1
  
Käyttäjän Luca Barbato profiilikuva
Luca Barbato  -  Thank you for proving once more the point of the article.
27.9.2011   
+2
  
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Balbi
>> Even Fatima's Miracle of the Sun http://en.wikipedia.org
>> /wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun is not a valid scientific evidence, because
>>you didn't witness it yourself, and because it's not reproducible
>
> did you not read the entire article ? Let me quote just a small piece of it below:
>
> "Professor Auguste Meessen of the Institute of Physics, Catholic University of Leuven, has stated sun miracles cannot be taken at face value and that the reported observations were optical effects caused by prolonged staring at the sun."
>
> So, a professor from the Catholic University has said it was only an optical effect. You probably stopped reading after the introduction right ?

Ehm... I don't want to be rude, but what evidence is the word of a catholic professor? Did he spoke to God or the virgin Mary, and finally they reassured him that they were innocent about that fact?

> That's what generally happens with religious folks, they don't want to look into deeper details, otherwise they will disprove their own beliefs.

If I had to be as fair as you, I would say that this is what generally happens with scientific folks (note, not scientists), they don't want to look into deeper details, they just take for good what professor X said.

> We have a plethora of evidence for evolution and yet you choose to believe on the only nonsense that has no foundation whatsoever: Religion.

I believe evolution. I don't use religion to explain what science can explain in a rational way.

> Religion (specially catholic) has created the most demented minds on earth (the priests). When you prevent a human (all in all, an animal like any other, just smarter) to fulfill normal biological needs (like the need to mate, to procreate, to feel pleasure - there are other animals on earth that make sex for pleasure only) you end up creating a demented person. That's why there are so many cases of priests raping little boys.

If you are willing to make a competition between us on who makes the most nonsense, here's my reply: the atomic bomb and all chemical weapons were created by science. Oh, and many scientists and mathematicians were gay, God forbid!

> How can you accept that ?

I don't.

> How can you believe in that institution ?

I'm extremely critical on what the church says, even when it comes to theology.

> How can sleep at night knowing all of that happens ?

I figure priests raping children deformed by chemical weapons, and I can conciliate religion and science, and sleep relieved.

> How can you rest peaceful when you know you believe in something that has no foundation, no evidence ?

What question is this? Anyway, as I find this entertaining: how can you rest peaceful when you know that all the things you believe in are well proved?

> That's what religion has done to you, they have brainwashed you, prevented you from becoming critical about things so you would do as they wish.

What's the foundation, the evidence of me not being critical about things? Could you sleep yesterday night, when you believed something that has no foundation, no evidence?

> Just think a bit: why is Jesus depicted as a white guy with eyes and curly hair ?

Because of ignorance. (this is a serious answer)

> That was just a marketing material, a simple propaganda created to make the Feudal overlords to give land to the church in exchange for a place in heaven.

Foundations, evidence?

> Church is a very sick place!!!

If you mean "church" as the institution of the catholic church, I agree. They are quite far from Jesus's preaching -- and I probably am as well.

> Religion creates sick people.

It's not religion who creates sick people, it's blindly believing everything you are told.

> And at the end of the day, they "don't give a damn about you and your family" (Jordan Maxwell).

Some do, some don't.

> If you really think praying will help you achieve anything, why do you even work, eat, sleep, etc ??? You can pray and get all of those.

Because I cannot pray properly, and I know that with my prayers I would always get crappy food. ;-)
27.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Zeeshan Ali
> just one thing: In the absence of sufficient evidence to back-up an assertion, it is logical to assume the negation of that assertion even if there is no evidence to support the negation of the assertion either. Read some introductory book on 'Logic' please.

When I became a teenager, people started yelling "God doesn't exist"; as I couldn't prove it, I assumed the opposite.
27.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Luca Barbato profiilikuva
Luca Barbato  -  I claim there are MANY gods, an uncountable number. All you take as proof of the existence of one can be used as proof for the existence of many.
27.9.2011   
+1
  
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Alberto Mardegan Didn't know you'll need that much help with such a simple thing: Logic dictates only one level of negation for an obvious (maybe not for you) reason: Negation of a negation of an assertion is the assertion itself.
27.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
27.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Zeeshan Ali Logic doesn't dictate that, but indeed in logical calculus double negations are eliminated. But tell me, why should I take "God exists" as assertion, and not "God doesn't exist"? Aren't they both assertions, each one being the negation of the other?

I admit that I didn't read many books about logic (just one), but I doubt that they really say what you wrote in your previous comment. Would you be so kind to give some references (or in alternative, to explain me why they say so)? I'm asking, because I think that I just proved that there's something wrong with it.
27.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Alberto Mardegan Because one is 'basic' (there is a particular term for it in logic, that I can't remember anymore) and the other is not. This isn't just about God but it applies to everything. Many phases/sentences are non-negative because of the choice of words, like "X is tall" which is the same as "X is neither short nor medium-height" but this assertion in question (God exists) can not be expressed as a negation.
27.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Luca Barbato profiilikuva
Luca Barbato  -  It negates your belief in a single entity.
28.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Måns Rullgård profiilikuva
Måns Rullgård  -  For some reason, this discussion reminds me of a "fortune" cookie about dragons:

"Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way." -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
28.9.2011 (muokattu)   
+3
  
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  I'll reply to the last comments tonight.

However, I've to say that there is one thing which violently strikes me: how come that when someone comes up with fallacious reasoning or easily confutable arguments in this post's comments no one stands up and corrects him (actually both +Måns Rullgård and +Felipe Contreras did it once, but that's a bit too little after all the bestialities which have been written by +Felipe Balbi ).
Could it be that these paladins of Reason are more interested in fighting against a religious person (on non-religious topics, BTW, but on logic) with any means, than applying logic and reason?

Maybe someone could reply to the latest question that +Zeeshan Ali asked, before I'll do that tonight, to prove that my suspicion here is totally without foundation?

TIA
28.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
28.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
28.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Alberto Mardegan find me a non-theist who will. Otherwise, I will assume that you accept that "inexistence of God" is a logical conclusion and its negation is not.
28.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Zeeshan Ali First of all, I'm still waiting for references for what you claim is in every logic book, which I never heard about.
Anyway, I replied to your question. Would you now tell me exactly why my reply isn't satisfactory?
28.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Alberto Mardegan if you need references for figuring out the simplest of logic, you are providing yet another proof of 'religious people are not logical'.

'Assuming the negation of an assertion, when there is no evidence/proof for either the assertion or its negation' is something you (like every person on this planet) do everyday about everything that doesn't contradict your beliefs. Think about it for a while and if you can't come-up with any examples, I will provide them.

Regarding why your reply is not satisfactory, I already told you a very simple reason: You are just playing with words. I say this cause I refuse to believe that you are not smart enough to see how your negation isn't really a negation, especially after I explained to you. In case my assertion about you being smart enough isn't correct, that would be even more evidence pointing to 'religious people are not logical'.
28.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Zeeshan Ali I'm afraid I need some examples. What often happens to me, is that when there are two opposite possible events, and I cannot be certain of either, I generally play safe and assume the worst. But this is rather vague, and I wouldn't say it's a general rule -- so I guess you mean something else?

About playing with words, I indeed was. But how can I say that "God exists" is a basic assertion, while "God doesn't exist" is not?
Your point can be easily proved being false: OK, let's say that "God exists" is a basic assertion. Now, if I were to find (or even invent) a language in which the sentence "God doesn't exist" is an affirmation while "God exists" cannot be expressed in an affirmative way, "God doesn't exist" would be a basic assertion in this language. So, according to the language being used, God's existence would change between being logic and illogic. Which is absurd.
28.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Alberto Mardegan we are not talking of events and future predictions of events here but what is reality. Try once more keeping this difference in mind. I promise this is the last time.

Could you point me to any language in which a positive assertion is defined over negation and is therefore more basic? No you say? How about any programming language (which are bound to be more logical than human languages)?
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan If by "=" you mean "⇔", I disagree: for me, just one way of the implication works: "believe ⇐ evidence.is_compelling()". To put it in English words, I can believe something even if the evidence is not compelling.

No, I don't mean "⇔", this is not formal logic, there are different forms of logic you know?

believe = evidence.is_compelling() is simply the only logical thing to do.

!tomorrow_will_be_cloudy.is_compelling() => don't believe (and suppose that the weather forecast is a tornado with lot of rains for a whole week)

Nothing wrong with that. A logical person would not believe that is true, but would consider the possibility.

!julius_caesar_was_killed_by_the_senators_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
!caucasian_wisent_are_extinct_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
!earth_revolves_around_sun_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe

Huh? The evidence that the Earth goes around the Sun is pretty compelling. Anyway, what is not compelling doesn't make sense to hold on as true; IOW believe it.

or do you want to sit down and define what "compelling evidence" means to you?

There's no need for that, we all agree that there's no evidence for God, right? Not only there's no compelling evidence, there's no evidence at all.

What you are saying is that it's Ok to believe in something even if there's no evidence. It's OK t believe in unicorns, that Elvis is alive, Yeti, etc. It's OK to believe in anything if evidence is not important.

Feel free to worship as many Gods as you please, it's fine with me: it's certainly not illogical.

Why is it illogical? Because there's no evidence? Why is that a problem with many gods, but not with your god?

However, I've to say that there is one thing which violently strikes me: how come that when someone comes up with fallacious reasoning or easily confutable arguments in this post's comments no one stands up and corrects him

I don't see what fallacious claims you are referring to.

So, if you don't agree with this (as any logical person would):
believe = evidence.is_compelling()

What is your definition of a logical belief? If compelling evidence is not your measure, what is? BTW, this is basic epistemology which very young children learn quickly; if mom keeps saying that she will give you candy but rarely does, there's no reason to believe in it next time. If there's no evidence for Santa Claus, you stop believing in it.

Why don't you accept that there's as much evidence for God as there is for Santa Claus? Therefore no reason to believe in it.
29.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan This might make sense if I felt oppressed by my religion (which I admittedly did, being a kid and partially a teenager -- though I'd rather call it "culture", than "religion"); but now I like to pray. :-)

That demonstrates that you don't care about the truth, just what makes you feel good. In fact, you might already feel that it's not true, because you are not even willing to spend 1% of your life assuming the other equally (probably more) likely possibility, perhaps because you are afraid about what your life would be without God.

You see, the difference between you and everyone else here, is that we all care about our beliefs being true. If you don't, there's no point in arguing. Believe in unicorns, or whatever.
29.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Felipe Contreras but believing in Unicorns doesn't cause any harm. Catholic religion OTOH has not only committed a lot of atrocities throughout history but is still inflicting a lot of harm, as pointed out in the debate you recently posted here.
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Zeeshan Ali Indeed, but I don't think Alberto would do harm because of his religion, and there's plenty of people like that. Many accept the atrocities of the Catholic religion, yet the want to hold on to parts of it for some strange reason, and that's what is difficult to debate, because instead of providing clear and real examples, one has to into epistemology, meaning of life, and other tricky stuff like that =/
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Zeeshan Ali
> we are not talking of events and future predictions of events here but what is reality. Try once more keeping this difference in mind. I promise this is the last time.

OK, then I give up: I cannot think of any examples.

> Could you point me to any language in which a positive assertion is defined over negation and is therefore more basic? No you say? How about any programming language (which are bound to be more logical than human languages)?

Here is one such language, it's "Nenglish" and I'm just inventing it: take English, remove the verb "to exist" and all its synonims, as well prohibit the use of "to be" without a qualifying adjective, add "to nexist" which has the same meaning that "not exist" has in English.
I remind you however, that until you prove your point above ("in absence of sufficient evidence, it is logical to assume false") all this is meaningless.
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras
>> If by "=" you mean "⇔", I disagree: for me, just one way of the implication works: "believe ⇐ evidence.is_compelling()". To put it in English words, I can believe something even if the evidence is not compelling.
>
> No, I don't mean "⇔", this is not formal logic, there are different forms of logic you know?
>
> believe = evidence.is_compelling() is simply the only logical thing to do.

Why can't you be more clear than this? If you are using a pseudo-code syntax, where you assign to a boolean variable "believe" the result of the boolean expression "evidence.is_compelling()", you are exactly meaning "⇔": that is, if the evidence is compelling, you believe, and if it's not, you don't believe.
Is this what you meant?

> !tomorrow_will_be_cloudy.is_compelling() => don't believe (and suppose that the weather forecast is a tornado with lot of rains for a whole week)
>
> Nothing wrong with that. A logical person would not believe that is true, but would consider the possibility.

I disagree, I would believe it.

> !julius_caesar_was_killed_by_the_senators_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
> !caucasian_wisent_are_extinct_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
> !earth_revolves_around_sun_evidence.is_compelling() => don't believe
>
> Huh? The evidence that the Earth goes around the Sun is pretty compelling. Anyway, what is not compelling doesn't make sense to hold on as true; IOW believe it.

What evidence is there for the Earth revolving around the Sun? We have a bunch of physics laws according to which it's logical to conclude that the Earth goes around the Sun. Too bad that all these laws are a theory from experimentation, and they hold just as long as other experimentation proves otherwise. In other words, they are just an assumption, like "God exists", which doesn't lead to any contradiction and is convenient to explain a few things we observe.
If tomorrow a new star is discovered far far away, which would appear to orbit around the earth, and after that, we found that all celestial bodies which are farther than a certain X distance from us are apparently orbitating around the Earth, we would need to formulate another theory.

But what about the other two sentences (Julius and Caucasian wisent)? Since you didn't comment on those, I assume that you agree, that we don't have compelling evidence. So, I conclude that you don't believe them, and that you think that believing those things would be illogical. If we admit this, I'm totally satisfied and as far as I'm concerned the discussion can end here.

>> or do you want to sit down and define what "compelling evidence" means to you?
>
> There's no need for that, we all agree that there's no evidence for God, right? Not only there's no compelling evidence, there's no evidence at all.

There is (but it's not compelling). But even if there weren't, it wouldn't change much to me.

> What you are saying is that it's Ok to believe in something even if there's no evidence. It's OK t believe in unicorns, that Elvis is alive, Yeti, etc. It's OK to believe in anything if evidence is not important.

Yes, where by "OK" I mean "not illogical". I would certainly say that one who believes that lacks some common sense, or I would wonder why the hell he believes that, but I couldn't conclude that it's illogical.

>> Feel free to worship as many Gods as you please, it's fine with me: it's certainly not illogical.
>
> Why is it illogical? Because there's no evidence? Why is that a problem with many gods, but not with your god?

You missed a "not": I wrote that it's not illogical.

>> However, I've to say that there is one thing which violently strikes me: how come that when someone comes up with fallacious reasoning or easily confutable arguments in this post's comments no one stands up and corrects him
>
> I don't see what fallacious claims you are referring to.

Not just claims (there aren't many in this discussion) but reasoning and arguments. Like that if a Catholic professor says something, that counts as a proof.

> So, if you don't agree with this (as any logical person would):
> believe = evidence.is_compelling()
>
> What is your definition of a logical belief? If compelling evidence is not your measure, what is? BTW, this is basic epistemology which very young children learn quickly; if mom keeps saying that she will give you candy but rarely does, there's no reason to believe in it next time. If there's no evidence for Santa Claus, you stop believing in it.

Why did you add the "logical" adjective here?

"logical belief" = a belief which is supported by logic
"belief" = just a belief
"illogical belief" = a belief which logic can prove being fallacious

I never said that I believe in God as a "logical belief", in the sense that logic makes me believe that God exists. I said that I believe that God exists, and that I don't find anything illogic about that.

> Why don't you accept that there's as much evidence for God as there is for Santa Claus? Therefore no reason to believe in it.

I think I wrote it several times already!!! I DO ACCEPT IT! However, I disagree on the last part of the sentence, because I have my reasons to believe it that God exists. If you are interested in knowing them, just ask, but be warned that none of them (and not even all together) will form a compelling evidence, and therefore you'll be easily able to find alternative explanations for them.
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  +Alberto Mardegan wrote:
What evidence is there for the Earth revolving around the Sun? We have a bunch of physics laws according to which it's logical to conclude that the Earth goes around the Sun. Too bad that all these laws are a theory from experimentation, and they hold just as long as other experimentation proves otherwise. In other words, they are just an assumption, like "God exists", which doesn't lead to any contradiction and is convenient to explain a few things we observe.
If tomorrow a new star is discovered far far away, which would appear to orbit around the earth, and after that, we found that all celestial bodies which are farther than a certain X distance from us are apparently orbitating around the Earth, we would need to formulate another theory.

I think we can stop this discussion here, before you humiliate yourself any further :)
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Salvatore Iovene I really want to be humiliated. Please go on, and tell me how I humiliated myself writing the above. Otherwise these statements of yours remain just a nice way to escape the discussion.
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Salvatore Iovene profiilikuva
Salvatore Iovene  -  +Alberto Mardegan: "discussion"? You call it a discussion when one party is so desperately clinging on their childhood believes that they will give a totally new meaning to the words "convoluted argument"?

You know, I've said it before myself: you can definitely write equations that describe the movements of all planets as if the Earth was at the center of the system. It has been tried, with some degree of success.
To justify the apparent retrograde motion of the outer planets, these equations got more and more complicated.

But you know, if you keep at it, they will eventually work. The point is, though, that there is a much better model, that with simple equations describes the movements of the planets, if the Earth is not at the center, but the Sun is.

To make a programming code analogy, you are writing your code like this:

if (i == 1) { foo(); }
else if (i == 2) { foo(); }
else if (i == 3) { foo(); }
else if (i == 4) { bar(); }
else if (i == 5) { tar(); }
else if (i == 6) { tar(); }
.
.
.
else if (i == MAX_INT) { tar(); }


I'm writing code like this instead:
if (i < 4) foo();
else if (i > 4) tar();
else bar();

Which one is better?
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Salvatore Iovene Your code is obviously better, and indeed Occam's razor can be applied to the formulas of the planets orbits to select the most simple version: the Earth is not at the centre of the universe. But it's in no way a demonstration, and the other variants are not illogic, until you prove otherwise.
How difficult is it to understand, that you are using the wrong adjective? If you say that "religion is illogic", you must prove it logically. Otherwise say that it's unproven, hypothetical, unscientific, and many other adjective. It's all fine to me.
I repeat, if you say it's illogic, you are offending logic!
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Alberto Mardegan You are making it very difficult for me to believe that you are not an idiot. :) Lets see how many can I come-up with instantly: 'There is an elf in your closet', 'You are an complete idiot', 'I have been living in your house with you for as long as you have lived there but you just did not notice me'. 'There is a bomb in your house that will explode as soon as you are done reading this comment'. Hopefully with the help of these few examples, you can come-up with more on your own this time.

I didn't say that you can't make-up a language that has the logic reversed. Every language has its own advantages and disadvantages but my point is that none of them (articial, real or programming) has that property under question. The reason is simply because its totally absurd and illogical to do so. You can invent as many languages that satisfies your 'illogic' but that doesn't prove anything.
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Zeeshan Ali I think we are speaking of two different things here. Of all the examples you made, I would generally assume that they are false, but logic has very little to do with it (indeed it has, but not that much): it's mostly about experience and common sense.
Believing that there is an elf in my closet is not illogic. If I open the closet, and I cannot see it, I can still continue believing that there's an invisible elf in my closet. If I move my hands inside the closet and I cannot touch it, I can still believe that there's an invisible and intangible elf in my closet. I'm talking about logic (because this is all what this discussion is about), you are talking about something else -- which I'm not saying is wrong, but it's not Logic.
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras
>> This might make sense if I felt oppressed by my religion (which I admittedly did, being a kid and partially a teenager -- though I'd rather call it "culture", than "religion"); but now I like to pray. :-)
>
> That demonstrates that you don't care about the truth, just what makes you feel good.

How does this demonstrate that I don't care about the truth? Assuming that by truth you mean "scientific truth", I definitely care about it. I do believe in the evolution theory; what I'm reclaiming here is that I could not believe it, and still not be labelled "illogical".

> In fact, you might already feel that it's not true, because you are not even willing to spend 1% of your life assuming the other equally (probably more) likely possibility, perhaps because you are afraid about what your life would be without God.

This is probably true, but I miss the point.

> You see, the difference between you and everyone else here, is that we all care about our beliefs being true. If you don't, there's no point in arguing. Believe in unicorns, or whatever.

Well, the difference between me and everyone else here is that I'm trying my best to reply your questions/arguments, while you ignore mine and/or make convoluted/irrelevant points.
Or are you (and everyone else here) willing to answer these:

1) Do you believe that Julius Caesar was killed by the senators?
2) Do you believe that the Caucasian wisent is extinct?
3) Do you believe that the Earth revolves around the Sun?
4) Do you believe that Jesus (as historical character) existed?
5) Tom believes all of the above; would you say that he's (at least partially) illogical?

Feel free to give extended answers if you think you need to; but first of all, please reply with a yes/no.
29.9.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  you are exactly meaning "⇔": that is, if the evidence is compelling, you believe, and if it's not, you don't believe.

logical belief ⇔ evidence is compelling

I disagree, I would believe it.

And when it doesn't happen you would be wrong, and the logical people would be right. Weather forecasting is anything but an exact science, therefore it follows that one can never be sure of forecastas. A much more likely explanation for forecast that a tornado will last one week (they are rather quick) is that the forecaster was on crack.

What evidence is there for the Earth revolving around the Sun?

For starters, direct observation, precise meassurements all along the way, the theory of gravitation that is as solid as solid theories go, plus we have all these cosmologists doing precise experiments considering gravitational waves and what not that take for granted that is the case.

In other words, they are just an assumption, like "God exists"

Most certainly not. You can't compare a bet that a coin will land heads, to that The Colts will loose because a meteorite will land on the game field. They are completely different in that one is sensible, logical, reasonable, and the other one is not. Yes, they are both bets, but that's where the similarities end.

we would need to formulate another theory

Until then it's completely bonkers to believe that the Sun gravitates around the Earth. Period.

Since you didn't comment on those, I assume that you agree, that we don't have compelling evidence.

I don't know what you are talking about, so yeah, I don't believe in that, because I don't have compelling evidence. If I were to Google about those claims, I might change my mind, but until then, no, I don't believe.

There is (but it's not compelling)

No, there isn't. I am talking about solid evidence, what a scientist would agree is scientific, what a court of law would consider it as so. Not what you or some religious nutjobs consider as "evidence".

Like that if a Catholic professor says something, that counts as a proof.

Again, I don't know what you are talking about.

"illogical belief" = a belief which logic can prove being fallacious

No. This is what illogical means:

not logical; contrary to or disregardful of the rules of logic; unreasoning. not observing the principles of logic.
devoid of logic ignorant or negligent of the rules of logic or correct reasoning contrary of the rules of logic or sound reasoning

Don't try to change the meaning of a word.

and therefore you'll be easily able to find alternative explanations for them.

Again, basic epistemology, if you don't have reasons to believe something is true, there's no reason to believe something is true, as it might turn out to be false.

So, again, that is the problem with your belief; it's highly likely to be false, and therefore; it's not reasonable, or logical, or sane, to believe in it.

Deep down you seem to know it, that's why you are fighting against your own reason, you don't want to let go of this belief even for 1% of your life even though at best it's 50% likely and would be only reasonable to live 50% of your life assuming the other likely possibility; you know there might be no turning back.

And that's what religion relies on; suspension of logic and reason.
30.9.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras
I'm getting rather frustrated at replying you, seeing how you don't answer my questions and therefore render impossible my attempts to make you follow my reasoning. I'll reply to your comment below, just not to leave it unanswered and give you the possibility of claiming that I escaped the discussion. However, I don't see much point in continuing it as I'm quite sure that you perfectly understood my point and are just not willing to admit it.
So, I'll conclude this discussion with you (unless you are willing to answer my questions that are left unanswered all over the thread):

You cannot say that the assertion "God exists" is illogic unless you prove its opposite, that is that God doesn't exist

If you don't agree on the above, you are not following logic rules and we can stop discussing here. And note that I'm not saying that saying "God exists" is logic. It's an assertion, whose validity cannot be established at the moment (or better, no one could establish till now -- you are more than welcome to try).
Without being too formal, we can sum up these:
- A predicate which doesn't contradict itself is not illogic
- A reasoning which follows the rules of logic is logic
- If a set of predicates is incompatible, it is illogic (eliminating some predicate from it might make it logic)

If we agree on these, you should also agree on the examples below (note that I've hidden a "God exists" there :-) ).

Examples:
"cats are dogs" is not illogic.
"cats don't bark", "dogs bark"; with these premises, "cats are dogs" is illogic.
"cats are not dogs" ⇒ "God exists" is illogic.
"cats are not dogs", "God exists" is not illogic (they are two compatible predicates)
"Evolution theory holds", "The universe was created 10000 years ago" is illogic
"Nothing can travel faster than light", "neutrinos travel faster than light" is illogic
"Nothing can travel faster than light", "God is omnipotent" is illogic

It's when you start mixing scientific models with religion's predicates that you are likely to get some contradictions, and then you can proudly say that believing both is illogical. And of course, even without assuming any scientific models as true, a specific religion can be illogic by itself, if it contradicts itself.

Your mistake, IMO, is that you mix logic and scientific reasoning in an improper way. Logic has nothing to do with evidence, it's all about predicates. Furthermore, all scientific theories are models built on empiric evidence; and here we have a couple of things that don't pertain to logic:
1) You can build several different models, all equally valid, to explain a phenomenon;
2) The fact that repeating an experiment in the same conditions will lead to the same results is (like "God exists") just an assumption (as you also wrote)

Occam's razor, used in scientific reasoning to solve (1), is a great tool but doesn't give certainty. Now, I think you agree with me on what I wrote above (though I'm not sure the others do), but then you insist saying that it's illogical to believe something that has no compelling evidence. It's a contradiction! Use any other word, but not "illogical"!

> logical belief ⇔ evidence is compelling

Religion is not a logical belief in that sense. It's "logical" in the sense that it doesn't go against logic, once you assume all its predicates.

>> I disagree, I would believe it.
>
> And when it doesn't happen you would be wrong, and the logical people would be right.

So what? I wouldn't be illogical. I would be illogical if I continued believe that it is raining, while it isn't.

> Weather forecasting is anything but an exact science, therefore it follows that one can never be sure of forecastas. A much more likely explanation for forecast that a tornado will last one week (they are rather quick) is that the forecaster was on crack.

My ignorance; I meant a typhoon.

>> What evidence is there for the Earth revolving around the Sun?
>
> For starters, direct observation, precise meassurements all along the way, the theory of gravitation that is as solid as solid theories go, plus we have all these cosmologists doing precise experiments considering gravitational waves and what not that take for granted that is the case.

Models, models, models.

>> In other words, they are just an assumption, like "God exists"
>
> Most certainly not. You can't compare a bet that a coin will land heads, to that The Colts will loose because a meteorite will land on the game field. They are completely different in that one is sensible, logical, reasonable, and the other one is not. Yes, they are both bets, but that's where the similarities end.

OK, so you think it would be illogical to believe those as well? If so, I can "forgive" your misusage of the term "illogical", as long as you misapply it consistently.

>> we would need to formulate another theory
>
> Until then it's completely bonkers to believe that the Sun gravitates around the Earth. Period.

For Occam's razor, which has nothing to do with logic. :-P

> I don't know what you are talking about, so yeah, I don't believe in that, because I don't have compelling evidence. If I were to Google about those claims, I might change my mind, but until then, no, I don't believe.

Well, Google cannot know what happened 2000 years ago. The evidence you'll find is just historians' accounts. Do you say it's illogical to believe them?

>> There is (but it's not compelling)
>
> No, there isn't. I am talking about solid evidence, what a scientist would agree is scientific, what a court of law would consider it as so. Not what you or some religious nutjobs consider as "evidence".

So, if there had been a trial at Jesus's times, and all of the witnesses would claim that they saw him walking on the water, would that be evidence?

>> "illogical belief" = a belief which logic can prove being fallacious
>
> No. This is what illogical means:
>
> not logical; contrary to or disregardful of the rules of logic; unreasoning. not observing the principles of logic.
> devoid of logic ignorant or negligent of the rules of logic or correct reasoning contrary of the rules of logic or sound reasoning
>
> Don't try to change the meaning of a word.

It's equivalent.

>> and therefore you'll be easily able to find alternative explanations for them.
>
> Again, basic epistemology, if you don't have reasons to believe something is true, there's no reason to believe something is true, as it might turn out to be false.

Sure.

> So, again, that is the problem with your belief; it's highly likely to be false, and therefore; it's not reasonable, or logical, or sane, to believe in it.
>
> Deep down you seem to know it, that's why you are fighting against your own reason, you don't want to let go of this belief even for 1% of your life even though at best it's 50% likely and would be only reasonable to live 50% of your life assuming the other likely possibility; you know there might be no turning back.
>
> And that's what religion relies on; suspension of logic and reason.

Nope. As long as it's >0 likely, I can believe it and not be labelled illogic.
1.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan You are confused about what Logic means:

Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning.

Inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true.

Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions and beliefs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasoning

So, you see, the whole point about logic is to find truth. There's no point in having rules of inference if your statements can't be determined to be true or false. In fact, that's why the term truth-bearer was created.

You seem to want to ignore the reasoning part which deals with evidence, and concentrate on the inference part, but even in deductive reasoning, evidence is important:

An argument is valid if it is impossible for its premises to be true while its conclusion is false.
An argument is sound if it is valid and the premises are true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning

If your premises are not true, your argument is unsound, and I already provided the definition of illogical:

Lacking sense or clear, sound reasoning

Your "argument" is a single statement that says 'God exists', and it's both the only premise and conclusion, which you say is true. But at the same time you say it might be false, so you jump from unknown state, to true, and whatever you are doing to do so, it's not following the rules of logic, neither correct reasoning, nor deductive reasoning.

Yet you say your belief is logical, so either you think your argument is sound (which is impossible), or you want to change the definition of illogical to ignore unsound reasoning.

You are doing quite extreme mental acrobatics to ignore the obvious, and now you want to get out of the discussion before you yourself realize how obvious it is by throwing a red-herring such as that I'm not replying to each and every comment you make, but if everyone did so, discussions would just increase in entropy and never end. I will try to respond to all your comments, just so you don't leave the discussion, but I don't think there's any point; all I needed to do is show that your argument is unsound, and that makes the belief illogical.
3.10.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan I've tried to reply to as much as I could, hopefully that's enough so you don't throw the board away like +Salvatore Iovene said you would. You seem to be demanding that I answer to everything, which I think is a red-herring.

Well, I wouldn't use the term "illogical": for me, illogical is something which has a wrong logic, and not something for which logic cannot be applied.

And that's exactly where claims without evidence fall; if a statement is neither true, nor false, you can't use it in logic.

Why, if it makes me feel well?

That's called wishful thinking. It doesn't make it true.

Mathematically, yes.

But not in a real way that would guide your life. I think it's clear that you are being intellectually dishonest.

Because I like Jesus' preachings, and I think they lead to a better mankind

That is a claim that doesn't stand if you look at the evidence, but if even if it did, that doesn't make it true.

So you are comfortable living a lie.

Here, "My mum told me that Jesus existed" is a fact.

That's not a fact. A fact would at least stand up in a court of law, and that claim would not.

But now I like to pray. :-)

And with this you prove that you don't care about truth, because pray has been demonstrated to at least not work, and in some case it actually cases harm.

Non sequitur. I can believe something without having any evidence for it -- it's an assumption.

That's not how assumptions work. An assumption must be eventually proven, if you can't, there's no point in even having it. Plus, whatever you deduce using an assumption it's still an assumption, certainly not something that is true.

It's not religion who creates sick people, it's blindly believing everything you are told.

And that's what religion relies on. You yourself believe in God because you were told so, and many other religious teachings, not because there's a shred of solid evidence for it. If you were born in India, you would believe something completely different, because you were told something different.

About playing with words, I indeed was. But how can I say that "God exists" is a basic assertion, while "God doesn't exist" is not?

Because one is negative; to prove that God exists you need a single solid evidence, to proof that God doesn't exist, it's basically impossible. They are completely different claims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absence

"illogical belief" = a belief which logic can prove being fallacious

Wrong. It can be because the logic is invalid, or because the logic is unsound.

If you are interested in knowing them, just ask, but be warned that none of them (and not even all together) will form a compelling evidence, and therefore you'll be easily able to find alternative explanations for them.

There are reasons why such kind of evidence is tossed in a court of law; it doesn't demonstrate anything.

We are talking about truth here.

I'm talking about logic (because this is all what this discussion is about), you are talking about something else -- which I'm not saying is wrong, but it's not Logic.

You are wrong. Logic is grounded in truth. If not, then it's unsound logic; illogical.

I'm quite sure that you perfectly understood my point and are just not willing to admit it.

Understanding a point doesn't mean it makes sense.

You cannot say that the assertion "God exists" is illogic unless you prove its opposite, that is that God doesn't exist

Wrong. All one has to do is to show that one of the premises of the argument is not true (not false, but unknown, or unknowable), and since that is the only premise, and conclusion, therefore your logic is unsound, and the whole thing is illogical.

- A predicate which doesn't contradict itself is not illogic
- A reasoning which follows the rules of logic is logic
- If a set of predicates is incompatible, it is illogic (eliminating some predicate from it might make it logic)

That's the validity of the logic, you are conveniently trying to ignore the soundness of it.

Logic has nothing to do with evidence, it's all about predicates.

Wrong. You are ignoring half of logic right there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundness

1) You can build several different models, all equally valid, to explain a phenomenon;

Yes, but none of those models is considered true. They have to make predictions, and if those predictions don't hold true, the models are tossed, or refined, and when one model stands out, and keeps making predictions, and those get validated; that model is regarded as true.

I would be illogical if I continued believe that it is raining, while it isn't.

Why? You said logic has nothing to do with evidence. Deep down you already know it does, because the whole point of logic is to find out truth.

Models, models, models

Direct observation is not a model.

If so, I can "forgive" your misusage of the term "illogical", as long as you misapply it consistently.

It's not a misuse, that's what it means, I have provided many links that show that soundness is an important part of logic.

For Occam's razor, which has nothing to do with logic. :-P

It's not Occam's razor. I already told you there's direct observation.

Well, Google cannot know what happened 2000 years ago. The evidence you'll find is just historians' accounts. Do you say it's illogical to believe them?

I would not look for historians' accounts, I would look for studies from experts in the field, their evidence, and their reasoning. I would look for skepticism on the theories, and ultimately, I would make a value judgement to see who makes the most compelling case. It might be possible that I don't find anything compelling, and I still decide not to believe anything.

So, if there had been a trial at Jesus's times, and all of the witnesses would claim that they saw him walking on the water, would that be evidence?

That would be weak evidence that would need to be examined closely. Maybe the records of the trial were altered, or there's records that the witnesses were paid off. Who knows, but we don't have anything like that.

Nope. As long as it's >0 likely, I can believe it and not be labelled illogic.

Not unless you change the definition of illogic.
4.10.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  Thanks +Felipe Contreras for the definitions. However, maybe I don't fully understand them, or there's some trick being played there ;-)
When I read the definition of Logic, I understand that it mentions "reasoning" as a fundamental element; however, the definition of reasoning that wikipedia gives is much much wider than what concerns reasoning in logic.

It's true that I voluntarily tried to ignore reasoning throughout this discussion, because it's something more debatable than logic. While I can easily (well, given the length of this discussion I'm not so sure of this adjective anymore...) claim that saying "religion is illogic" is generally wrong, I'd have a much harder time to fight against the statement that "religion is unreasonable". And it can also be, that both an assertion and its opposite are reasonable.
I think we could easily agree on this.

Then you continue quoting definitions that are taken from the wrong page. :-) Of course if we are talking about deductive reasoning, all arguments claiming "God exists" are unsound. That is a claim that can't be deduced -- I wrote many times already, that it's more an of assumption (though I could also try to explain why I believe in that, and even with some reasoning -- but let's not start this discussion while we still disagree on what "illogic" means).

> Your "argument" is a single statement that says 'God exists', and it's both the only premise and conclusion, which you say is true.

No, maybe I failed to explain myself: it's not an argument, and I'm not saying it's true. Logically speaking, it's an assumption, something that I take as true by definition. It's indeed what I believe in, but belief is outside the domain of logic. So, on one side (logic) I take that as assumption, along with other assumptions which are part of my religion: I didn't find these assertions to be an incompatible set, so in that sense it's logic. On the other side (which is actually orthogonal to the former), I need to confront these assertions with reality, and here's where reason and evidences come in. In this context, I can only say that my assumptions are possible, and I can find some justification to them -- not a scientific proof.

> But at the same time you say it might be false, so you jump from unknown state, to true, and whatever you are doing to do so, it's not following the rules of logic, neither correct reasoning, nor deductive reasoning.

This is what I just wrote about in the second part of my previous paragraph: it's not in the domain of logic or deductive reasoning; there is something about reasoning indeed, but I don't want to enter this topic before we have closed the previous one. That is: so far I'm only interested in clearing the "illogic" stamp from "religion".
4.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan So you agree that 'God exists' is an unsound argument (if you can call it that), so therefore it's unsound logic (if you can all it that), therefore it's an illogical claim.

But somehow an illogical claim can turn into a logical belief?

Man, there are the dangers of religion right there!

Your beliefs are unjustifiable. You can't separate logic from reason, if something is unreasonable, then it's also illogical.

Please accept the fact that what we are trying to do is find out the truth, not play mental games to try rationalize our beliefs. Logic and reason are tools to find out the truth. If you say something is true beyond the realm of logic and reason, then clearly you are not interested in the truth.
4.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras As far as this discussion is concerned, I'm definitely not interested in scientific truth.
However, it seems we still disagree on the definitions and especially on their application. So please bear with me, and let's go through an example and a few questions -- for me to understand better what logic and reason mean to you. :-)

"Yesterday I went to the woods to pick up mushrooms. While I was picking them up, I met a very friendly guy who told me that he found an area where there are lots of good mushrooms, and he even told me where it is."

1) Do you think that the account is illogic?
2) Is it unreasonable?
3) Would you believe me, if I told that to you?
4) I told that to Tom, and he believed me. Do you think that Tom is being illogic?
5) Or is he being unreasonable?
6) Then, I asked Tom if he'd like to go to that place next week, and he agreed. Do you think that he's being illogic?
7) Or unreasonable?
8) If Tom changes his mind, would you come instead?
9) What are the reasons for your answer?
4.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  1) Do you think that the account is illogic?

You are not stating anything, so it's hard to say what exactly you mean.

But I'll assume that you mean believe that what the friendly guy said is true. If that's the case, no, I don't think it's illogical to believe the guy, because there are reasons to believe him, starting from; why would he lie?

2) Is it unreasonable?

No, for the same reason.

3) Would you believe me, if I told that to you?

Yes.

4) I told that to Tom, and he believed me. Do you think that Tom is being illogic?

No.

5) Or is he being unreasonable?

No.

6) Then, I asked Tom if he'd like to go to that place next week, and he agreed. Do you think that he's being illogic?

No. And I fail to see how is that relevant.

7) Or unreasonable?

No.

8) If Tom changes his mind, would you come instead?

Yes, I guess.

9) What are the reasons for your answer?

As I already explained, there are logical reasons to believe in such claim. But you can easily change your claim to "the friendly guy said there were unicorns there", and then there wouldn't be reasons to believe so, even if you said so, and even if Tom said so, I would be skeptic.

Moreover, there's this thing called likelihood; if a random guy says there are good mushrooms, I'll say it's 60% likely to be true, if you said so, I'd say it's 70%, if you, random guy, and Tom all said the same, and you went there recently, I'd say it's 90% likely, but if what you are claiming is that there are unicorns, I'd say it's 10% likely.

But this is about things you saw with your own eyes, and even then I would be skeptic. The existence of God is nothing like that.

Plus, even if something is 50% likely to be true, it might be worth to check that place for mushrooms because it's not that much of an effort to do so, but trusting my life on that? No way.

Even if it's 90% likely, because people saw it with their own eyes and what not, I will never ignore that 10% chance it might not be true, therefore I wouldn't trust my life assuming it's true.

And that's what you are doing; you are not willing to truly accept the possibility that it might not be true. You don't want to imagine a life without God, you don't want to spend even 1% of your life assuming the other option, and so on.

In other words, you act like it's 100% true, you act like it's true, you believe blindly (as in with no compelling evidence) in it. That is illogical.
4.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  And FTR, this is how I became an atheist. First, I realized that the catholic god made no sense, so I redefined it in a way that I though was logical. Then, I realized that there wasn't actually any reason to believe in it, so I redefined my life in terms that if there was no god, I would be happy with my life, and if there was a god, he would agree. I thought I was an agnostic because I though that we couldn't know if God existed or not, but I kept the possibility open.

As time passed, the need to have that possibility open disappeared, as it really doesn't matter if God exists or not, I would live my life the same way.

It seems you think believing in God somehow makes a difference, so I think you are stuck.

Let me tell you what I would do if I were god, first of all, I wouldn't be jealous of other gods, people can believe in whatever the want, but the must do good. I wouldn't condemn people to hell if they didn't know about Christianity. I wouldn't demand sacrifices or rituals in my name, as I wouldn't need attention. I wouldn't risk my will to be written down by primitive people and say that would be the guideline for all eternity, in fact, I wouldn't provide any guideline, my people should find the right way on their own. I would not answer prayers, people must take responsibility for their own lives, and I would not play favorites. In fact, I would detest them, because instead of helping people by themselves, as they should, my children want me to do it for them? And I would never have a son on Earth in order to create yet another religion in order for people to kill on its name (being the only one true religion), that's far too dangerous.

Needless to say, I wouldn't ask Abraham to murder his son to prove that he loves me (that would seem like I don't have much self-esteem). I think every rational person would agree that I would be a much better god than the Christian God.

Why does God need so much attention? Why is he so self-centered? Wouldn't a reasonable God be OK with people not believing in him as long as they do good? Maybe the true God prefers atheists, because we do good regardless of punishment or prizes, and detests all religions because they try to define him, and they all fail. Or maybe the pantheists are right, and we are the building blocks of God.

So you see, at the end of the day it's illogical to believe that out of the thousands of gods there are, your definition of god is the correct one. Why do you spend so much time trying to rationalize a belief in an entity that is by definition beyond human comprehension? Wouldn't it be much easier, rational, logic, sensible and reasonable to live your life without god and concentrate on the things are actually withing your grasp to understand?
4.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras
> 1) Do you think that the account is illogic?
>
> You are not stating anything, so it's hard to say what exactly you mean.
>
> But I'll assume that you mean believe that what the friendly guy said is true.

Not really: I meant the whole paragraph enclosed in quotation marks. I'll assume that your answers won't change -- tell me if they do.
And I'm glad to see that you answered exactly how I would. :-)

> 9) What are the reasons for your answer?
>
> As I already explained, there are logical reasons to believe in such claim. But you can easily change your claim to "the friendly guy said there were unicorns there", and then there wouldn't be reasons to believe so, even if you said so, and even if Tom said so, I would be skeptic.

There are no logical reasons! When you say "there are reasons to believe him, starting from; why would he lie?" you are logically assuming that the account is true, you validate it first with logic (and find no logical incompatibility with all what you already believe as true) and then with reason (taking the likelihood into account); which is exactly what I'm doing with "God exists": it doesn't contradict what I know, and isn't unreasonably unlikely. And to put my "God exists" assertion in a form familiar to you: why would thousands of people (the very early believers in Jesus) be willing to lose their life for Jesus? And why would Jesus lie?

There not compelling evidences for any of the assertions (the account above and "God exists"), and in fact you can quite easily find reasonable answers to all our questions:
1) Why would the guy lie? -> To play a prank
2) (and if you take my original account) Why would I lie to you about it? -> Because I want you to come pick mushrooms with me in the woods, without you suspecting that in fact I have no clue of where good mushrooms might be.
3) Why would Jesus lie (about being son of God)? -> He was crazy
4) Why would his followers let themselves killed for him? -> Because they actually believed him, and didn't understand that he was crazy

> Moreover, there's this thing called likelihood; if a random guy says there are good mushrooms, I'll say it's 60% likely to be true, if you said so, I'd say it's 70%, if you, random guy, and Tom all said the same, and you went there recently, I'd say it's 90% likely, but if what you are claiming is that there are unicorns, I'd say it's 10% likely.

You can consider likelihood when deciding if an assertion is reasonable (though I'm not even sure about it), but certainly not about logic. Logic is about giving sure answers; otherwise it's called probability.
As far as logic is concerned, the religious "truths" I believe in, and the account above are perfectly equivalent.

> But this is about things you saw with your own eyes, and even then I would be skeptic. The existence of God is nothing like that.

I did (if the account were true), you didn't. You believed my word for it, without any compelling evidence.

> Plus, even if something is 50% likely to be true, it might be worth to check that place for mushrooms because it's not that much of an effort to do so, but trusting my life on that? No way.

As I already told you, other than praying there's not much I do. And I like praying. Please don't argue on that. :-)

> Even if it's 90% likely, because people saw it with their own eyes and what not, I will never ignore that 10% chance it might not be true, therefore I wouldn't trust my life assuming it's true.

Well, you make it sound like a total loss. If you find someone who whines about his life as a Christian, I'd argue that he's not really religious, and that he's just been oppressed by conformism.

> And that's what you are doing; you are not willing to truly accept the possibility that it might not be true. You don't want to imagine a life without God, you don't want to spend even 1% of your life assuming the other option, and so on.
>
> In other words, you act like it's 100% true, you act like it's true, you believe blindly (as in with no compelling evidence) in it. That is illogical.

TBH, if I really were 100% sure that it's true, I'd do something more than praying: I'd give more to charity, or anyway do something more for the poor. But I believe that those people who do that (be they believers or not) are extremely happy of doing that.
Actually, if you say that it's illogical to claim to believe, and then be scared of taking more drastic moves to your life, I'd be with you (except that I'd rather say "inconsistent" than "illogical").
5.10.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan I meant the whole paragraph enclosed in quotation marks.

There isn't even a conscious decision there.

There are no logical reasons!

Yes, there are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_reasoning

why would thousands of people (the very early believers in Jesus) be willing to lose their life for Jesus?

Who says they did? Who says their form of Christianity was the same we have today? Maybe it was Gnosticism, and they didn't stand up for Jesus, but for enlightenment. Orthodox Christianity wasn't defined until centuries later by people in power.

And why would Jesus lie?

Who says Jesus even existed? There's certainly no compelling evidence. In fact, the myth of Jesus is a copy-paste from countless other myths, that are very similar.

1) Why would the guy lie? -> To play a prank

Yeah, but why? He wouldn't even know if I fell or not. And it wouldn't even be funny if I did.

2) (and if you take my original account) Why would I lie to you about it? -> Because I want you to come pick mushrooms with me in the woods, without you suspecting that in fact I have no clue of where good mushrooms might be.

Yeah, but that would be counterproductive, as trust is a much valuable asset than mushroom picking company.

3) Why would Jesus lie (about being son of God)? -> He was crazy

Again, who says he even existed? And who says his words were not distored by the people that wrote the bible centuries later (who never met him).

4) Why would his followers let themselves killed for him? -> Because they actually believed him, and didn't understand that he was crazy

Again, who says they did?

Logic is about giving sure answers; otherwise it's called probability.

Wrong. Nothing is 100% certain, everything in real life is about probability.

As far as logic is concerned, the religious "truths" I believe in, and the account above are perfectly equivalent.

Wrong, one is much more sound than the other.

I did (if the account were true), you didn't. You believed my word for it, without any compelling evidence.

Your reasoning seems a bit rusty. Something I see with my own eyes has some certainty, something somebody says he saw has less, something somebody says he heard somebody else saw even less, and so on. In fact, the Amazonian Piraha Tribe has different expressions for different types of accounts, not surprisingly, they couldn't be converted to Christianity because nobody told them they knew about somebody who actually saw Jesus.

Losing Religion to the Amazonian Piraha Tribe - Daniel Everett

Again, the existence of God is nothing like that.

As I already told you, other than praying there's not much I do.

That's what you think, and most likely you are wrong. The fact that you are so afraid of living even a small period of time without God suggests that. If what you said was true, you wouldn't have any trouble with it, even if it was just to prove a point.

And I like praying. Please don't argue on that. :-)

And that's a perfect example that you don't care about logic or reason, since that has been proven not to work. But you don't care about that, do you?

Like Sam Harris said; How can you convince someone that doesn't value logic, using logic? How can you convince someone using evidece, if the doesn't value evidence?

I already showed you that logic and reason go together, yet, you continue to deny that fact. I don't think there's any way I can convince you, since clearly, religion has poisoned your mind.

Believe whatever makes you happy, but that doesn't make it true. Believe that Elvis is alive, that unicorns exist, that the Titanic was sunk by a Godzilla-like creature, that JFK was killed by an alien conspiracy, or that God exists are all logical if you want; for the rest of the world, it's illogical.
5.10.2011 (muokattu)   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Felipe Contreras , I'm afraid that continuing talking to you about this is pointless. You are not willing to understand, and even less making any effort to follow my reasoning. On the contrary, you try to find every possible reason to debate about anything, digress there and pretending not to understand my points.

I will not continue this discussion with you (I will with others, if anyone is still following it and feels like it); if you won't even admit that you contradicted your "believe = evidence.is_compelling()" statement by believing a story (the one about the mushrooms) which has no compelling evidence whatsoever, I really don't know how it's possible to have a meaningful conversation with you.
Good bye.
6.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan Your mushroom story has compelling evidence enough for 60% likelihood, not 100% which is what you attribute to 'God exists'. Why do you think everyone here agrees that religion is illogical (except you)? Why do you think more than 90% of scientists (logical people) are secular? Religion is illogical. Logic is bound with reason. But you are blinded by your religion, so I can't use logic and reason to prove that to you, nor can anyone. Why do you think everybody else here gave up trying to convince you? You are just not open to the possibility that religion is illogical, and no matter what we, or anybody says, you are not willing to see the truth.
6.10.2011   
+1
  
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Alberto Mardegan Felipe is correct here: we derived the exact same conclusion about you that you just derived about Felipe. Others can correct me if I am wrong about this.

I gave-up on you after I failed miserably to show you how an extremely simple assertion such as 'X exists' is not a negation and 'X does not exist' is. I think thats something a child with basic education in logic can see. Since I know that you are otherwise a very smart person, I concluded that your faith is not allowing you to see how illogical you sound and hence gave-up on you.
6.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  +Zeeshan Ali Now don't make me look so bad, I never denied that "X exists" is not a negation. What I couldn't accept (without reference or demonstration) is that logic says that when both an assertion and its negation cannot be proved, one should assume the negation -- this seems absurd to me, and I was trying to show this by arguing that being a negation can vary according to languages.

I'm not saying that you are making up this rule (I never heard it before); you might have indeed read it somewhere, but I believe that you misunderstood it, or are applying it incorrectly.
7.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan Logic is about deriving truth. If you can't say something is true, you shouldn't believe it's true. And note that !"believe it's true" is not the same as "believe it's false".
7.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Zeeshan Ali profiilikuva
Zeeshan Ali  -  +Alberto Mardegan "I never denied that "X exists" is not a negation." How did you get that from my last comment? I said the total opposite. No matter what you say and how many arguments, example or evidence you bring-in here, you will continue to look bad and illogical if you keep on insisting that "X exists" is a negation of "X does not exist".
7.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  + Zeeshan Ali You wrote:
I gave-up on you after I failed miserably to show you how an extremely simple assertion such as 'X exists' is not a negation
And my reply was saying that I never confuted that. What game are we playing?

BTW, I'm still waiting for some references of the rule you quoted some time ago. :-)
8.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
14.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Alberto Mardegan profiilikuva
Alberto Mardegan  -  + Felipe Contreras Fine. But how I also wrote there, it has nothing to do with this discussion (and again, you could believe my mushroom story).
14.10.2011   
Käyttäjän Felipe Contreras profiilikuva
Felipe Contreras  -  +Alberto Mardegan The important part is 'You should not believe in nonfalsifiable statements'. But there's nothing in the realm of logic and reason that will convince of that, is there?
14.10.2011