How could a sensible person believe in the bible?

[logician]

Somebody please name a religion that is based upon logic, and not faith or vision.

 

[Storm]

Somebody please name a religion that is based upon logic, and not faith or vision.

That's rather like asking for music based on sculpture.

 

[ChristineES]

Actually, religion does have logic. The problem is that is our logic and not yours.

 

[Eraser Salad]

I don't have much faith in your logic.

"How could a sensible person believe the Bible to be literally true?" would probably be closer to what the OP meant. And the answer to that is "cognitive dissonance."

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I don't have much faith in your logic.

Cute ...

By the way, you folks might wish to reserve the word 'logic' for those cases in which you wish to address issues of logic. Misusing the term simply muddies the discussion.

So, with that in mind, could some of my atheist friends take a few moments and demonstrate what you find inherently and necessarily "illogical" about Judaism and/or Christianity?

 

[cardero]

How could a sensible person believe in the bible?
Far be it for me to tell anyone why, how and when to believe or not to believe. But once one adopts a belief (wherever they may find this belief) one still has to put this belief through the rigors of comparative knowledge, understanding and reasoning before concluding it as a Truth or Untruth. Faith will not do this for you.

 

[Eraser Salad]

So, with that in mind, could some of my atheist friends take a few moments and demonstrate what you find inherently and necessarily "illogical" about Judaism and/or Christianity?

Belief in God itself is an unreasonable assumption.

I have a friend enrolled in a Catholic college, and they're required to take theology classes where they study the logical proofs for God. They all seem to be increasingly complex versions of "I believe, therefore I'm right."

 

[Storm]

Belief in God itself is an unreasonable assumption.

Sometimes, but to say that it always is is an unreasonable assumption itself.

Sometimes, hard as it may be for you to believe, belief in God is quite rational.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

By the way, you folks might wish to reserve the word 'logic' for those cases in which you wish to address issues of logic. Misusing the term simply muddies the discussion.

So, with that in mind, could some of my atheist friends take a few moments and demonstrate what you find inherently and necessarily "illogical" about Judaism and/or Christianity?

Belief in God itself is an unreasonable assumption.

So you believe, and I'll be more than happy to address your dogma later, but what does that have to do with my comment?

 

[faithofabraham]

Somebody please name a religion that is based upon logic, and not faith or vision.

Your right not even the religion of science.

foa

 

[faithofabraham]

i will agree with you though that religion in itself is usually not based on logic, but that is because most religions arent based on what the bible says.
the bible itself is very logical, its storyline, its progression, its message.
but what is required is the belief in it, that it holds truth.
to explain my first post...science too is based on illogical faith. you still have to believe that some higher being started everthing around us that you see. at some point in time.
If you take a moment to look at the two scenarios of creatinism vs. evolution, then you have 2 very silly illogical stories. 1 a being creates all that you see in a matter of days 2 a being that created all the known matter in the universe, condensced and placed in some spot in the universe and then blew it up.
why is one really that much more silly then the other? I mean if you are going to call the idea of a higher being illogical in the first place.
I guess that your going to have to come up with the answer of why everything that exists, exists and then explain that to me.

foa

 

[Booko]

Somebody please name a religion that is based upon logic, and not faith or vision.

Please name me a great work of literature that is based on logic.

 

[Booko]

i will agree with you though that religion in itself is usually not based on logic, but that is because most religions arent based on what the bible says.

That has the appearance of a statement made from ignorance of what other religions actually teach.

I would be interested in seeing you back it up with some actual evidence showing how other religions have no logic to them. But that would probably be a different thread, should you choose to take me up on my inquiry.

the bible itself is very logical, its storyline, its progression, its message.
but what is required is the belief in it, that it holds truth.

There is nothing logical about miracle stories, though they may be instructive in other ways.

to explain my first post...science too is based on illogical faith. you still have to believe that some higher being started everthing around us that you see. at some point in time.

Science rests on axioms, that is true. But its conclusions are falsifiable in the strictest sense, which presents quite a chasm between science and metaphysics.

And no, clearly people do not have to believe a higher being started everything about you. There are a number of atheists who function rather well without such an assumption.

If you take a moment to look at the two scenarios of creatinism vs. evolution, then you have 2 very silly illogical stories. 1 a being creates all that you see in a matter of days 2 a being that created all the known matter in the universe, condensced and placed in some spot in the universe and then blew it up.
why is one really that much more silly then the other? I mean if you are going to call the idea of a higher being illogical in the first place.

a. Which creation story? There are 2 different ones in the Bible alone.

b. Scientific theories are based on interpretations of observable evidence. Biblical stories of creation are not.

c. Scientific theoies can be (and are) overturned when new evidence is brought to light. The same cannot be said of Biblical stories, at least not until someone invents time travel.

I guess that your going to have to come up with the answer of why everything that exists, exists and then explain that to me.

Science is interested in "how" not "why."

That you have confused the purpose of science ("how") with the purpose of religion ("why") is, very sorry, your problem for you to tackle.

There is no call to make it anyone else's problem.

 

[Eraser Salad]

Sometimes, hard as it may be for you to believe, belief in God is quite rational.

Care to give an example? The only honest reason for belief I've ever heard is "it makes me feel good," which is pretty antithetical to rationality.

So you believe, and I'll be more than happy to address your dogma later, but what does that have to do with my comment?

Now, I'm assuming that you're nitpicking, and only talking about "logic" in the formal sense and ignoring the more commonly used definition. Feel free to correct that inference.

There is no unflawed logical argument for God, which makes it inherently illogical to believe in one anyway. ...well, that's what I meant in the previous post, anyway. As I further consider it in the context of previous statements in this post, if belief in God makes you feel good and you want to feel good, truth be damned, then the belief would be logical. But it would still be irrational.

By the way, as long as we're in the territory of semantics; "dogma" refers to the strict adherence of a written code, so using the word to describe a personal philosophical view is incorrect. "Zeal" might be more correct; but I guess then you sacrifice the implication that empiricism is some sort of authoritarian religion.

 

[Storm]

Care to give an example? The only honest reason for belief I've ever heard is "it makes me feel good," which is pretty antithetical to rationality.

Well, when you've had personal experience of God, you have to trust your perceptions. I can either believe in God, or believe in nothing, and I do mean nothing, right down to my own body. My theophany was intense and transformative, changed the very nature of my thought process, and left no room for doubt.

Believing in God doesn't make me feel good or bad; it's as certain and impersonal a fact as the existence of gravity.

 

[logician]

Most all religions I have seen have been based in faith and/or vision, not logic.
Is it "rational" to be religious? I think that rationality of most every religion is questionable, because they weren't invented on a basis of rationality, but on a basis of preserving tradition or establishing power, and used emotional appeal as their main basis of support.

 

[Hope]

Since we cannot say how old either footprint is, all this tells us is that the human stepped here after the dinosaur. If creationism was true then we shouldn't we also find dinosaur footprints on top of human footprints?

Think about the absurdness of that question. Unless it's a very tiny dinosaur, with very small footprints, most dinosaur footprints on top of human footprints are going to completely obliterate any traces of the human footprints.

And the only logical reason for human footprints to be found inside of, or on top of, dinosaur tracks in the first place, is if that human stepped in the same place shortly after the dinosaur did. While I'm sure some of these human/dinosaur tracks may be fakes, there are too many for them all to be fakes. And the theory of evolution which claims humans and dinosaurs did not co-exist simply cannot explain this.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

The schools do a great job of brainwashing, telling us the same fairy-tale year after year til we believe it: Long, long ago in a land far away a frog turned into a prince....

So would you prefer them teach us the bible or its sister...Enuma Elish version???????

You are gonna be hard pressed to convince me that's what schools are teaching. I work in a school system and that is not what is taught. There is a brief stent on evolution and a brief stent on religion(s).......For the most part..schools try to stay away from all of it....

Can we just leave the teaching of religion to the churches, mosques, temples, synagogues etc.....? I'm quite sure you don't want your hard earned tax dollars pouring into the school system that teaches all avenues of religion. Imagine your child coming home expressing their faith in something other than the religion you believe is the "true way". This is why schools stay out of it and leave it up to the community to teach religion.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Think about the absurdness of that question. Unless it's a very tiny dinosaur, with very small footprints, most dinosaur footprints on top of human footprints are going to completely obliterate any traces of the human footprints.

Yes, because for some reason losts to the mists of time, all dinosaurs were very conscientous and always completely covered the human footprints. They never stepped half-on/half-off them, leaving a human heel- or toe-print sticking out, right?

And the only logical reason for human footprints to be found inside of, or on top of, dinosaur tracks in the first place, is if that human stepped in the same place shortly after the dinosaur did. While I'm sure some of these human/dinosaur tracks may be fakes, there are too many for them all to be fakes. And the theory of evolution which claims humans and dinosaurs did not co-exist simply cannot explain this.

How many do you think there acutally are?

 

[Dirty Penguin]

When I read those school science books and they say billions and billions of years ago, and the primordial soup, and life formed and here we are, is a fairy-tale to me as I'm sure the Creation story is a myth or fairy-tale to others. To me, it takes more 'faith' to believe in the theory of evolution with all its missing links than to believe that, "in the beginning, God..." That's just me, though, from my studies, etc. People are welcome to believe what theory they conclude is best supported by their studies.

That is no more a fairy tale than some unseen whatever in charge of creating it all and getting pissy when you don't follow its commandments that it knew you wouldn't follow in the first place......