I am quite annoyed when people try to persuade others to believe in Christianity by claiming the arguments they make are "logically followed". No religion in the world can be logically followed, if you understand that "logically followed" means a deduction. if we talk about validity, all these statements are not valid. However they can be logically probable.
Many people never understand why someone has certain beliefs. Most of the time we believe in something not because it logical follows, nor it does have very strong support. Oh yeah, of course in theory it sounds great if all of us only believe in something known to be true or say have deductive support to be true. Nevertheless this is not the case. How often do we have deductive reasoning for our beliefs and actions? Why would we believe that the sun is going to rise tomorrow morning? Why would we believe that all living things in the world are going to die some days? There's never a deductive reason for all these believes.
Therefore I never argue with people about how sensible or how logical Christianity is. Non-Christian would not believe in our God just because the argument "sounds reasonable". It's something you have to feel in order to accept.
P.S. Note that, something logically followed (deductively valid) does not imply that it is true, well, basic logic 101 knowledge. e.g. ((p->q)^p)->q, but p may be false.
I argue that it is neither necessary nor appropriate to believe in God because it logically follows from something else, whatever it is.
ReplyDeleteBut it is totally another thing if someone tries to CHALLENGE the belief in God (whether concerning its existence or any particular attributes). Usually, proponents will offer arguments trying to show that the beliefs are illogical in the sense that they are self-contradictory or inconsistent with some of our central beliefs that are not possible for us as human beings to give up.
In this situation, where truth is concerned, logic is highly relevant and should not be simply bypassed.
As far as logic is concerned, it should be remembered that though the conclusion of a valid argument need not be true (as shown in your last para), a self-contradictory statement is necessarily false. Therefore, if it can be shown that certain Christian beliefs are contradicting with each other, or with some of our central (especially scientific and moral) beliefs, there will be a case against the belief in God, which at least requires a defense I suppose.