<p>I actually said you were demanding proof that God does not not exist. I only demanded proof that god does not exist because you continue to claim that the idea of the existence of God is illogical. That claim implies that you have a proof that God does not exist.</p>
<p>I don’t believe I’ve claimed in this thread that God does exist, only that that it is not a matter in which one can reach a <em>logical</em> conclusion.</p>
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I think I agree with you BIGTWIX. gotakun misunderstands what morals are. Morals are not assumptions about the nature of things (such as the moon and how it isn’t made out of cheese). Morals are really the ethical boundaries a society creates, and ethics and inherently subjective to a culture. Morals don’t assume facts, like the moon is made out of cheese. Morals are things like “it is wrong to kill people” or “share.” Logic is basically proving things correct or incorrect. Since morals are subjective, they can not be proven to be correct or incorrect (however, a system of morals can be proven to be inconsistent).</p>
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Hahaha… This thread is cracking me up. The “right” I’m talking about is “a culturally established freedom.”</p>
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It is not logical to assume there is a god without some sort of proof. I don’t believe (but am open to dissenting opinions) you can write a logical proof that concludes there is a god. I believe it is not possible. This does not imply that I have proof of the nonexistence of a god.</p>
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You’re right, but as I’ve said, the moral belief that you should ignore the rules of logic is unique.</p>
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These people speak sense. See a pattern here?</p>
<p>If a person feels that God exists/religion makes sense or not, you can’t dissuade them. It has to come from within. This is not a logical conclusion. I thought this would be a rant about the failings of the school system, not a complaint about “believers” vs. “non-believers.”</p>
<p>Religion =/= morals =/= logic. If, within your own subjective framework of the illogical, everything logically works out, you’re not going to have issues. You can prove the logical to others, but the illogical/religious/etc. cannot be proven and you’d probably better not try.</p>
<p>In the meantime, let’s teach our kids that 2+2=4, which may help them graduate from school.</p>
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Yeah, same. I don’t think that is quite what it is, but I still thought it would go differently.</p>
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Graduating from school should not be the goal. Preparing kids for their future should be the goal. Their education should be a tool they use to survive, make decisions, and set and accomplish goals. As of now, it’s seemingly mostly a time-filler until they become adults. It’s a critical period in their lives and they couldn’t care less about their education. I think this is because the curriculum is not completely relevant and isn’t presented in a meaningful way.</p>
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<p>That’s because these beliefs are NOT the results of proofs. For the religious, the existence of god is something taken on faith. The christian cannot prove the existence of god to you because it is something he accepts, straight up, as truth! </p>
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<p>Maybe some Christians justify their beliefs in this way, but the Christian who carefully examines his beliefs will have to admit that the existence of God is something he accepts on faith.</p>
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The problem is that, in this society, you are automatically assumed to be an idiot if you have not completed school, and are assumed to be smart if you have, with the degree of smartness correlated with the prestige of the degree (i.e. PhD). Now there is a lot of truth to it, but success in school is not really proof that you have brains. Case in point: OP’s complaint that kids don’t understand logic. Still, you have to have an education to have a future.</p>
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And the atheist who carefully examines his beliefs should accept that the non-existence of God is something he/she accepts on (lack of) faith. Not too much disagreement on this issue?</p>
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And it’s not logical to assume that there isn’t God without some sort of proof. If proof of neither side is possible, then clearly the issue of which to choose as one’s premise transcends logic. That is to say, it’s alogical, not illogical. </p>
<p>Any argument, though, must start with premises that are, on some level, alogical. Actually, one could even use something that is logically false as a valid premise - it’s just not useful.</p>
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“I believe in God like I believe in the sun–Not because I can see it, but because by it, all things are seen.” - C.S. Lewis (one of my favorite quotes on faith).</p>
<p>I don’t believe in my religion because my parents/community do, but because I have faith that God exists. There’s no reasoning behind it, other than a deep conviction I’ve formed by my own. M-W defines faith as “firm belief in something for which there is no proof”; hence, religion must be extricated from logic by definition.</p>
<p>I agree completely with ThisCouldBeHeavn. Religion and atheism are alogical. I was just going to post that until I saw he already had.</p>
<p>simple: there are few (if any!) American teacher who can understand, let alone teach, logic classes. American schools are truly terrible in every aspect.</p>
<p>^C’mon, I’m sure there are a <em>few</em>…it’s the school system that is messed up. K-12 should be much more condensed and much more specialized…</p>
<p>Wow, geez. This is too much for me to handle lol. I don’t want to make blanket or definitive statements because I am not well-versed on this topic. I really don’t want to continue to debate about this when I honestly don’t know if I’m being presented with legitimate, sensible arguments. I’m providing rebuttals like I am, but for all I know, I could be wasting my time because neither of us know what we’re talking about.</p>
<p>I feel like the burden of proof is absolutely necessary. You can’t say that the lack of a negative proof is a valid reason to assume truth. There are an infinite amount of arguments that people can come up with that can’t be disproved, and they are all as equally valid as the supposedly non-disprovable (which has been disputed) belief that there is a god. I don’t know if it’s even possible to write a negative proof for the existence of something, so demanding one might not even make sense.</p>
<p>Also, asking religious believers to justify their current beliefs will not necessarily reveal the logical fallacies that were assumed to be true when the original conclusion was made that there was a god. It is incredibly unlikely that anyone would spontaneously decide to have faith and believe in something, and for that something to just happen to be a religion that was never previously presented to them is even less likely. There were mechanisms in play that originally convinced the believer of the existence of a god that surely defied the rules of logic.</p>
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<p>The key is to separate the ideas of truth and validity. The conclusion of a valid argument isn’t necessarily true, unless all of the premises are true. If one of the premises is disputable, then any dispute over the truth of the conclusion can be reduced to a dispute over the truth of the premises.</p>
<p>Gotakun, you said in this thread that you do not see the difference between common sense and logic. I am sorry if you modified that to fit my definition.</p>
<p>In this case, I guess we are on the same page. Your aim seems to be to say claiming to conclude based on assumptions with a logical flaw is illogical…I agree, though to define religion to be something which must complete this error is silly. People identifying themselves with certain religions who do not make this mistake abound in my circle of acquaintances.</p>
<p>you guys are lame</p>
<p>^I think that’s the shortest post in the last 5 pages of this thread. Also the least well-reasoned</p>
<p>^Post 50 was shorter, though perhaps better reasoned.</p>
<p><em>headdesk</em> LW at least probably read the previous post…</p>