| Runa216 said: I honestly don't even know why I come to religion threads anymore. as a logical and rational thinker, I generally hope to be able to spread a bit of knowledge and bring to light the logical fallacies at play, HOPING to at least encourage..something positive, but all I see is wave after wave of irrational thought. Some people are smart (you know who you are), but almost everyone on the religion/god/spiritual side is vomitting words that make no sense. There are so many logical fallacies at play here that I could write an essay explaining each and every one of them, but deep down inside...I know it won't do any good because, as I've been told many times before, "[we] have a right to believe". I just want to help people by helping them avoid irrational thought, but people are so aggressive about their rights to ignorance..it's amazing the human race has advanced at all with that kind of attitude. |
Thing is logic and rational thinking are merely tools, very useful tools, for helping to determine truth. They alone don't help to find truth, because truth about reality (a proper view) requires actuall evidence from interacting with the known universe, to be able to arrive at it. It is this combination of use of reason, and wisdom, combine with the data from interaction with the universe, that helps to determine truth.
Beyond this though, one can end up having valid understanding of things, even if they got there by irrational means. And if you were to come in, destroy someone's irrational basis for holding what they believe, which actually does produce a good set of values and makes them a better person, you actually have done someone no favors.
Reality takes you worship of rationality as some sort of ultimate ideal and throws it into a grinder. I will quote Chesterton here:
Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.
This being said, is it a good thing for someone to shun logic and reason, and live in logical falacies? No. But don't presume for one minute you think you are helping reality by coming into a religious thread and blabbing about "logic". Want to help humanity? Go work in a soup kitchen. Serve people and do tangible things. Your desire to "be logical" and persuade others to do is, is just another person who wants to persuade others to their world view. Well, it is a world view with some nice benefits though.
