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Showing posts with label logic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label logic. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Beginning to Argue Effectively

In my previous post, I discussed the need for Christians to engage others by using argumentation. We use argumentation while looking for fallacies for flaws to determine unsound or invalid arguments and assertions by others, all the while seeking to find the truth of a matter. Arguing in a logical, thoughtful manner helps us look for the flaws in other people's stances and helps us to effectively assert our own. Arguments highlight those things that can change a belief.


In fencing, there is a technique to sparing with an opponent. It isn't always a hard attack. There is some give and take. One may lunge and thrust, but one must also be able to guard and parry. Similarly, when arguing, one must be skilled in providing a thoughtful exchange. One must know the techniques in arguing and how to properly argue. It is tragic that so many Christians today seek to engage those who hold to different beliefs with the truth of the gospel, but offer terrible reasons for their beliefs. I think Christianity has the best arguments, but without an understanding of what comprises a sound argument, many people are coming to a sword fight with boxing gloves, and they will only get themselves skewered as a result.

Learning the structure of a well-formed argument belongs to a field of study known as logic or critical thinking. Logic teaches one what the components of an argument are, how to properly argue, and how to identify others' arguments. It will also teach how to identify flaws or fallacies in arguments.

How to Build an Argument

So what makes up an argument? What are its components? The biggest component is the conclusion. The conclusion of an argument is the main fact you are trying to get across. This is where we are going; this is our destination. If you are to map out an argument the conclusion is the endpoint. But a conclusion cannot rest on its own. Just as the roof of a house needs walls to hold it up, a conclusion needs one or more facts or reasons to support it. These facts or reasons are known as premises.

As an example, we can look at the following argument:
  1. The Esposito family watches hockey.
  2. Hockey is a sport.
  3. Therefore, the Esposito family watches sports.
This argument presents two premises or facts: The Esposito family watches hockey, and hockey falls inside the category of sports. Knowing these two premises, one can now have knowledge that the Esposito family is a sports-watching family. Now, you may not know our family, or you may not know if we would be the type of people who would watch sports or not. But if you know statement #1 is true and statement #2 is true, you can safely conclude that the Esposito family watches sports. You have gained a new fact based on the first two facts that you already know.

Let's look at another, the Kalam argument for the universe's existence. It is formed like this:
  1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the universe must have a cause for its existence.
The conclusion we are arguing towards is that the universe had to rely on something else for its existence. Like our previous argument, the first two statements are the premises that hold up the conclusion and if we know both of those facts, we can know that the universe doesn't exist because of itself, but must rely on something or someone else for its existence.

It is the strength of gaining new information from facts that we already have that makes arguments so powerful. While knowing that my family is sports fans is not particularly interesting, knowing that we must look outside of the universe for its cause helps up on our way to making an even bigger argument, one that argues for God's existence. However, when we talk with others, we don't always get to hear their arguments in such a straightforward manner. In my next post, I will talk about ways you may identify arguments that your interlocutor may be making in casual conversation.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Should Christians Never Argue?

Photo courtesy Cobalt123
As Christians we seek to spread the truth of the Gospel to a lost and dying world. However, as our culture continues to lose its Christian underpinnings, many people are finding that communicating that Gospel isn't quite as easy as it used to be. Previously, most people on the west would have more or less a shared set of beliefs about how the world works, a common worldview based on Judeo-Christian principles. Today, though, that isn't necessarily true. Moral relativism and materialistic views have replaced much of the previous beliefs that grounds one's understanding of who we are and how we should behave. 

So, Christians need to understand that now part of sharing the gospel entails changing beliefs. As I've written before, there are two basic ways I can think of to change a person's beliefs: either provide new information to that person or show how the beliefs one currently holds are contradictory. It requires input of some kind so that people will begin to think a little bit differently, to reassess or reevaluate what they actually hold to be true.

Engaging Others to Change Beliefs

There are at least four ways all people have engaged one another, but not all of them are effective in helping a person change their beliefs. The first one is pretty easy, it's simply discussion. Discussions by themselves can be about anything, what the weather is like, what you did over the weekend, or even what your favorite food is. Discussions are usually non-confrontational and they allow you to connect with the other person. They are friendly and casual. However, they don't necessarily push towards any kind of conclusion.

Sometimes, simple conversations can reveal conflicts or strong opinions on a belief, and people can find themselves in a disagreement. Sometimes we disagree with one other, but just having a disagreement doesn't necessarily provide knowledge. "He thinks tapioca pudding is the greatest dessert on earth and I think it's fish eggs and glue. We have a disagreement.” Simply disagreeing with someone shows that your beliefs on some matter diverge, but disagreements themselves don't seek to come to a conclusion. No one gains in knowledge simply because they recognize that they disagree with one another.

Many times disagreements devolve into fights. Unfortunately, this is the way many disagreements end up when someone seeks to change another's beliefs. People take offense that their beliefs are challenged and they strike back at the other person. Fights usually generate much more heat than light. People attack one another personally, and emotions rule over reason. Little if any real knowledge is exchanged, and what has is usually tainted by the person's hurt feelings and desire to protect him or herself.

Simply Agree to Disagree?

Because disagreements have devolved into fights, a lot of people in our culture think that whenever a disagreement arises, everyone should just leave it there. Agree to disagree on everything, the thinking goes. But, as I said, no real knowledge is gained simply by recognizing a disagreement. Therefore, Christians need to employ another technique in our interaction with others, and that is argumentation.

I use the word "argument” in a very specific way. I use it in its classical sense not in the common usage as a kind of fight or loud disagreement. An argument is simply supplying reasons or evidence for a view, belief, or contention. A prosecuting attorney will present an argument to the jury in order to make them believe that the defendant is guilty of whatever crime he is accused of. When the Christian builds an argument for something like the existence of God, he or she argues by providing statement that serve as evidence for the proposition "God exists.” There are reasons to believe in the proposition.

As Christians, we are commanded to provide arguments for our faith in the Bible. The Apostle Peter writes to the church and instructs them, "but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15 ESV). So, biblically, we are not to simply stop at disagreement, nor are we to let ourselves lapse into fights. We are to argue and provide reasons. However, most Christians have never been instructed on argumentation; they simply don't know how to argue effectively. We will cover that in an upcoming post. But it is important for anyone who seeks to share the gospel, that is anyone who is seeking to change a belief, to learn to argue appropriately and effectively.

Friday, January 03, 2014

Christians Cannot be Intellectual Slackers

C. S. Lewis had a great quote when talking about the followers of Christ. He said, "God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of being a Christian, I warn you: you are embarking on something that is going to take the whole of you, brains and all."

I completely agree. Christians today have accepted the secular world's idea that somehow faith and reason inhabit separate spheres. The two are sitting on opposite ends of a spectrum and the more one applies tools such as logic and philosophy to his or her beliefs, the less and less they will be considered faithful or pleasing to God. A bumper sticker that used to be fairly popular summed up this kind of attitude: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it."

But nowhere in scripture are we commanded to approach our beliefs blindly. In fact, we are commanded to do just the opposite. When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was he replied, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30). Tellingly, although Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy 6:5, He added the phrase "and with all your mind." Jesus said that loving God must include developing the life of the mind.

This makes a lot of sense, given how Jesus identified Himself. In John 14:6 He said, "I am the Way the truth and the Life." Well, if we think about Jesus as truth, then we should be applying reason and logic to our beliefs. Logic is simply a tool that we use to find truth.

Part of our difficulty in seeing logic and critical thinking as ways we can better love God may be because we think that such tasks are only human enterprises, while Jesus is divine. Logic means works, while He is grace. But if Jesus is truth and we can use logic to discern truth, then we can use logic to see the reality of Jesus.

You may be surprised to find that out that the implementation of logic is actually found throughout the Bible and especially in the New Testament. Jesus used logic and argumentation many times. For example, just before He gave the command to love God with your mind, the Sadducees tried to test Him with a question about a woman who was married and widowed seven times. They used a technique in logic known as reductio ad absurdum to show that their views on the afterlife were correct. However, Jesus capably destroyed their argument and chided them, saying "Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?" He then give the command that we must love God with all our minds.

The Sadducees were unprepared. They hadn't done their homework and as a result had a mistaken view of God. As faithful followers of Christ, let us not shy away from some of the harder work of learning and developing our minds so we can more completely love our God with all that we are.

Thursday, December 05, 2013

Some Problems with Consequentialism

This month, I got to interact with students at a local college, as part of a panel hosted by The Well club. Four of us answered questions from students about the nature and evidence of Christianity. One questioner, the president of the newly-minted atheist club on campus, engaged in a discussion on morality. I've maintained that if morality is objective it must be grounded in God.  He said that he held to an objective moral standard based on "ethical consequentialism." In a separate discussion at a later time, another atheist also offered consequentialism as a basis for morality.


For those that don't know, consequentialism is an ethical system that seeks to root moral values and duties in the consequences one's actions will produce. In other words, an action is moral if it produces consequences that are seen as beneficial in some sense. Utilitarianism is the most well-known version of consequentialism, with philosophers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill arguing that what is moral is that which promotes the greatest good for the greatest number. I don't think any kind of consequentialism works to ground moral values and I want to offer three initial reasons why.

1. Consequentialism results in immoral acts being identified as moral

The first thing one should realize is that consequentialism makes the claim that rightness and wrongness are not found in any action itself, but in the consequence of the action, that is what the action will produce. So, adultery isn't in itself wrong, it is wrong only when the result is one that causes adverse effects, like the harm it causes the offended spouse. But what if a "Same Time Next Year" scenario were to present itself? In this film, the once-a-year tryst not only produces no adverse effects on the marriage the rest of the time, but each participant actually helps the other through different emotional trials. In such a case consequentialism would say that their adultery is the moral thing to do and it would be immoral to withhold this meeting form either party. Calling adultery moral shows the absurdity of consequentialism played out consistently.

2. Consequentialism asks too much

Another problematic aspect of consequentialism is the fact that one must determine one's consequences when performing any action. How are we to do this? Many times, seeing what the actual consequences of an action are is nearly impossible! How could one see all the ramifications of a simple lie? Sometimes it amounts to nothing; other times it can have devastating effects on a third party, perhaps a party whom you never realized would be privy to the lie at all! And is it reasonable to ask people to really reflect on every consequence of all their actions or should they do the right thing for no other reason than it's the right thing to do? If the consequences in question are not personal but are weighed at a societal level, the problem becomes even more egregious. No one could possibly know the outcome their actions would inflict  upon an entire culture. Such knowledge would truly require a form of omniscience, but then we're arguing for God.

3. Consequentialism fails because it assumes what it is supposed to prove

While the two problems above are serious issues with consequentialism as a workable moral system, the biggest problem is with the understanding of how consequences benefit either the individual or the society. You see, by appealing to actions that produce a benefit, the consequentialist has smuggled in a concept of good and evil to measure against. But you cannot do that if you are talking about a system that is supposed to define what good and evil are in the first place.

Consequentialist will say, "We can know what is good because those things allow humans to survive and flourish." But this doesn't solve the problem. First, why is it "good" that all of humanity flourish instead of just the individual? Who says that one should sacrifice one's life for the sake of the society? Just because I would want someone to feed me when I'm hungry doesn't mean that I want to go hungry for the sake of someone else. If I can achieve the first and not the second, I have advanced the good for myself.

Secondly, where did this idea of advancing "the good" for all humanity come from? Philosopher Peter Singer argues that when we think this way, we are committing a kind of speciesism and other species hold the same rights as humans. Maybe by allowing humans to thrive we are denying the cockroach a chance to evolve into the next ruling species on the planet!

No matter which base point one chooses for "the good" consequentialism has no way of answering "why that point and not this one over here?" Instead of defining what is "the good", consequentialism assumes the good and begins to argue from there. It becomes question-begging! Therefore, consequentialism can never really be considered a basis for understanding good and evil. It is simply another subjective viewpoint that doesn't ground right and wrong, but describes them based on assumptions of the individual espousing it.

Morality must be prescriptive if it is to be binding. Consequentialism fails to be even descriptive, since it cannot ground ultimate concepts such as "the good." Most consequentialists are moral, but only because they borrow from Christian ideas, like the inherent worth of persons, in order to begin their calculations of end results. Thus, consequentialism fails as a basis for true morality.

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Separating What's Possible from What's Reasonable

Man: Oh look, this isn't an argument.

Mr. Vibrating: Yes it is.

Man: No it isn't. It's just contradiction.

Mr. Vibrating: No it isn't.

Man: It is!

Mr. Vibrating: It is not.

Man: Look, you just contradicted me.

Mr. Vibrating: I did not.

Man: Oh you did!!

Mr. Vibrating: No, no, no.

Man: You did just then.

Mr. Vibrating: Nonsense!

Man: Oh, this is futile!
I've always been a big Monty Python fan. The Pythons' ability to mix thoughtful, intelligent subjects with all-out silliness has never been matched. One of their most famous sketches is "The Argument Clinic" where a man pays for the service of having an argument. Unfortunately, his results are not what he expected. If you're unfamiliar with the sketch, you can watch it below.

The discipline of apologetics is all about giving reasons for your faith. I've engaged with many people, both in person and online, who are skeptical about the claims of Christianity or the Bible. They demand evidence for things like God's existence or the resurrection of Jesus. They say that "blind faith" should be avoided and reason should hold sway over our beliefs.

In such conversations, I usually agree. Christianity has never promoted a blind faith, but one based on certain evidence. Then, depending on the objection raised, I demonstrate this by explaining the evidence I have for my view. If we're discussing God's existence, for example, I talk about the fact that something cannot come from nothing, that we see clear signs of design in the conditions of the universe, and so on.

Like the man in the Argument Clinic, my reasons have been sometimes met with "but it isn't impossible that the initial conditions of the universe just happened to be set that way" or "it may be the case that the universe came from something else that we don't know" or "it could be possible that certain chemicals came together to form a living organism." Others will respond with claims that although science offers no answers for us now, it will someday; we just need to give it more time.

The problem with such replies is that they are not seeking to answer the question the skeptic originally raised. The person has asked you to defend the reasonableness of your belief. If you can show that your belief is built upon evidence, then you have at least met the initial query. The question now becomes is there any counter-evidence to rebut the evidence you have provided. This is a crucial step. It isn't good enough to say "Well, we don't know what happened so there could be other possibilities." Of course there could, but the burden of proof has just shifted to the one who is dismissing your evidence. He or she must do more than posit "just-so" scenarios.

Just-so scenarios are just that: ideas without any evidence behind them. As such, they put the objector in the very same category as that to which they are objecting: offering a case with nothing to support it. Part of being a rational person is to draw a distinction between what is possible and what is reasonable to believe.

There are a lot of things that may be possible in the world, but are highly unlikely: such as dealing oneself a royal flush in poker two times in a row. Of course mathematics shows that such an event is possible, but it isn't reasonable to believe that such a thing happened without deliberate intervention. If I'm playing poker and I see you dealt two royal flushes, I'm going to accuse you of cheating. That would be the reasonable thing to do. Similarly, seeing the strong evidences for a creator from the natural world, one is reasonable to infer deliberate intervention.

The man in the Argument Clinic sketch recognizes that he is not getting what he paid for. He complains:
Man: An argument isn't just contradiction.

Mr Vibrating: It can be.

Man: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.

Mr Vibrating: No it isn't.

Man: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.

Mr Vibrating: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.

Man: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'

Mr Vibrating: Yes it is!

Man: No it isn't!

Man: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
"Just-so" responses are really a form of gainsaying. The person is simply dismissing the evidence that you have just presented.  As the man in the sketch said, it isn't an argument, but a childish way to escape the evidence that you may present.

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Arguing from Ignorance

After posting my podcast series "Why the Origin of Life Requires a Creator," I received a response from an atheist friend of mine who charged me with committing a logical fallacy. In the comments section he wrote, "It is all a logical fallacy called 'Appeal to Ignorance.' 'Not knowing' isn't evidence for, nor against, the existence of God."


For those who are not familiar with the discipline of logic, there are two types of fallacies one can commit when advancing an argument: one is a formal fallacy, which is when the conclusion one presents doesn't follow from the premises. In casual conversation this sometimes happens, but one is more apt to run into an informal fallacy. An informal fallacy is one where you present something as evidence that really isn't evidence for your conclusion at all.

The fallacy known as appeal to ignorance (formally argumentum ad ignorantiam) was first coined by philosopher John Locke in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The Lander University Philosophy Dept. web site gives us a good definition:
  1. Argumentum ad Ignorantiam: (appeal to ignorance) the fallacy that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false or that it is false simply because it has not been proved true. This error in reasoning is often expressed with influential rhetoric.

    The informal structure has two basic patterns:
    • Statement p is unproved.

      Not-p is true.
    • Statement not-p is unproved.

      p is true.
  2. If one argues that God or telepathy, ghosts, or UFO's do not exist because their existence has not been proven beyond a shadow of doubt, then this fallacy occurs.
  3. On the other hand, if one argues that God, telepathy, and so on do exist because their non-existence has not been proved, then one argues fallaciously as well.
Of course, anyone who has listened to the series would know that I don't claim that God exists because no one has proven otherwise. However, I've heard this charge before, that by claiming a creator I am somehow committing an appeal to ignorance. In my conversation, my friend said:
"If caveman are sitting around talking about what causes thunder, and one says it is the gods in the sky fighting, and the other says he doesn't know, does that prove it is the gods fighting (inference to the best conclusion)? We don't know anything about origin details just like the cavemen... running to belief in superstition doesn't equate to discovering truth.

"I agree we should always use 'inference to the best conclusion' but in these categories no one knows. So to claim this as evidence for god is the fallacy of 'appeal to ignorance.' It is a classic example of that basic fallacy."
Notice the equivocation in the example above. The "cavemen" not only know nothing about the origin of lightning, but they also know nothing of the nature or property of lightning. Understanding the nature of a thing can help us to identify or eliminate its origin. Knowing the nature of a thing is real information that must be considered when weighing the cause.

My friend Jim Wallace recently explained to me that a homicide detective, when confronted with a dead body, knows that there are only four explanations for a person's death. The person may have died of natural causes, he may have died from accident, he may have committed suicide, or he may have been a victim of homicide. If there are no witnesses and no recording of the events, the detective doesn't know which scenario is true. However, homicide requires there to be another person present, where the other three causes do not. If you can examine how the person died and show that this person could not have died without the actions of another, then you are reasonable in holding homicide as a viable option.

When arguing with my atheist friend, I used a similar analogy:
"If I were to say 'The origin of a bullet in a man's heart requires a shooter,' would that also be an appeal to ignorance? There's evidence and there is an inference to the best explanation of that evidence. That is not a logical fallacy, but an inductive argument."
You see, we know that bullets don't just grow inside of people. We also know that life requires certain initial conditions. We can understand what replication entails, how DNA to mRNA to amino acid strings to their folding a certain way in order to create required proteins necessary for life. We know about chirality in amino acids and sugars and the long odds of homochirality happening randomly. All of these points I brought up in my series, and they all argue that life simply could not have arisen through only natural processes.

It is easy to throw out the charge of fallacy, such as "you're appealing to ignorance!" but by misusing the term it simply becomes a dodge to avoid the evidence presented. Argumentum ad Ignoraniam takes a very specific form. Don't fall for the charge of committing a fallacy when the fallacy doesn't apply.

There are many of these informal fallacies, and the Internet is awash in lists of them. For those who wish to dig deeper into learning about logic and critical thinking, including identifying fallacies, I recommend The Thinking Toolbox and The Fallacy Detective, both by Nathaniel and Hans Bluedorn.

And in all of your reasoning, "Let's be careful out there."

Monday, July 22, 2013

Seeing Jesus as an Intellect


Who is Jesus? The question has been around as long as Jesus has! From the time that Jesus began ministering; people have been asking "Who is this man?" Jesus is portrayed many ways in the Bible. Some of His titles in the Bible include:
  • Savior
  • Messiah
  • The Lamb of God
  • The Light of the World
  • The Second Adam
  • The Son of God
  • The Word made flesh
  • Lord of Lords
  • King of kings
Of course, people continue to try and add dimensions to Jesus that they find relevant. Recent book titles that invoke Jesus include Jesus: CEO, Jesus is my Superhero, Jesus the Prophet of Allah, Jesus the Rebel, Jesus the Outlaw, and The Good Man Jesus & the Scoundrel Christ. These are simply examples of people trying to see Jesus as a reflection of their highest ideals; even the former head of the Soviet Union,Mikhail Gorbachev, called Jesus "the first socialist"![1] Obviously, people view Jesus through the lens of their assumptions and what they want Him to be.

Do Christians miss aspects of who Jesus is by our assumptions?

Even Christians who seek to properly understand Jesus can overlook aspects of who Jesus is because of their preconceptions. If I gave 100 people a blank sheet of paper and asked them to write their top ten attributes of Jesus, I would get many answers. I'm sure several would repeat some of the titles I've listed above. But I doubt that I would get one "Jesus is an intellectual" or Jesus is a master logician". The concept of Jesus as a logician is not any stranger than Jesus as a master carpenter, Jesus as teacher, Jesus as CEO, yet we never seem to equate Jesus with intelligence.

Why not?

Jesus relates to the Intellectual

Simply put, the modern church has not placed a sufficient value on intelligence as a necessary means for worshiping God. We tend to divorce concepts of faith and rational thought. Faith is seen as "spiritual" while knowledge is seen as "worldly." We believe Jesus was sinless and a champion of the downtrodden and we seek to do likewise. But Jesus also commanded us to love our God with all our minds (Luke 10:27) and He modeled this when He engaged with those who would question His actions.

USC professor of Philosophy Dallas Willard captures the idea of this concept well when he says:
"In our culture and among Christians as well, Jesus Christ is automatically disassociated from brilliance or intellectual capacity. Not one in a thousand will spontaneously think of him in conjunction with words such as "well-informed," "brilliant," or "smart."[2]
Dallas Willard goes on to write:
"Often, it seems to me, we see and hear his deeds and words, but we don't think of him as one who knew how to do what he did or who really had logical insight into the things he said. We don't automatically think of him as a very competent person. He multiplied the loaves and fishes and walked on water, for example--but, perhaps, he didn't know how to do it, he just used mindless incantations or prayers. Or he taught on how to be a really good person, but he did not have moral insight and understanding. He just mindlessly rattled off words that were piped in to him and through him. Really?"[3]
But can we seriously imagine that Jesus could be Lord if He were not smart? If He were divine, would He be dumb? Or uninformed?  Once you stop to think about it, how could Jesus be what Christians take Him to be in other respects and not be the best informed and most intelligent person of all: the smartest person who ever lived, bringing us the best information on the most important subjects.

In fact, John's gospel starts by identifying Jesus as the "Logos." Many Bibles translate that a "word" but the implication of Logos is not merely a word but an intelligent, rational thought. Logos is the root of our word logic and Jesus as the Logos is the embodiment of logic.  He used is throughout His ministry. His aim in utilizing logic was not to win battles, but to achieve understanding or insight in His audience, so He'd challenge the woman at the well or have the twelve disciples pick up twelve baskets of leftovers after He fed 5,000, trying to help them draw conclusions from His actions. (He even chided the disciples for not doing so.)

The church today needs to begin seeing this missing aspect of Jesus' nature. We complain and lament that our institutions of higher learning have kicked God out of the classroom, but has the church kicked the professor out of the pew? Do we never offer any kind of vigorous intellectual message so a PhD could look forward to church as a time of intellectual stimulation? Do we water down our messages so much that we never seek to stretch our congregations even just a bit, to make them a little bit smarter? Do we believe that Jesus was the smartest man who ever lived? And will we seek to love God with all of our minds as well as with our hearts, all our souls and all our strength?

For more on this topic, see: Jesus: The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived.

References

1. Haberman, Clive. "Israel Welcomes Gorbachev as a Hero". The New York Times. June 16, 1992. <http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/16/world/israel-welcomes-gorbachev-as-a-hero.html> Accessed 7/22/2013.

2. Willard, Dallas. "Jesus the Logician". DWillard.org < http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=39> Accessed: 7/22/2013

3. Ibid.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Who Should Be Able to Speak in the Abortion Debate?

During her filibuster to try and stop the Texas abortion bill that was just signed into law, Texas state Senator Wendy Davis said, "This legislating is being done and voted on—look around the room—primarily by men." In making that statement, Davis invoked an argument that has been used many times in the abortion debate: that since men cannot get pregnant they lack the real knowledge of what abortion means for women. A blogger at the Abortion Gang web site makes the same claim even more clearly when she writes:
"I want to silence all the male voices in the abortion discussion… In fact, the majority of persons in government who are anti-choice, are men. And none of them can get pregnant. The people who are making decisions that affect the lives of women, CAN'T EVEN GET PREGNANT! And so, I want to silence the voices of all men." (Emphasis in the original.)
The interesting thing, though, was that the Davis clip was featured on Rachel Maddow's news talk show on MSNBC. If you don't know, Maddow is an open lesbian who says she's in a committed relationship with her partner, Susan Mikula. So, other than spending a lot of money on insemination treatments, Maddow has the exact same chance of getting pregnant as any man in the Texas state government: none at all. Yet, Maddow felt she was quite in the right to discuss the issue and lead with this argument by Davis.

If pro-abortion supporters like Davis and the Abortion Gang are going to argue that the opinion of someone who cannot get pregnant should count less than those who can, then thy should be consistent and ban lesbians from the debate. In fact, they should have no infertile women or post-menopausal women speak to the issue, either.

It is clear that a standard such as the ability to get pregnant falls woefully short of a good argument in whether such a bill as was before the Texas representatives should be passed. Davis knows this and she was hoping to trade on people's emotions rather than making real arguments. Maddow seems to have bought it, even though her actions in engaging with the debate directly contradict the point that Davis implies. Such contradictions are worthy to be ignored.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Atheists, Pink Unicorns, and God

I've written before about atheist Internet memes, these static images with a slogan or question are meant to quickly prove the atheists' point that belief in God is just so ridiculous it can be this easily disproven. But such attempts usually backfire, showing the poster as the one who really doesn't know the arguments in question, or even the subject matter of the meme itself.


I stumbled across one just the other day that truly underscores my point. A group of atheists who manage a couple of pages on Facebook page look to be responsible for the image to your right. The meme is meant to answer the Christian demand that if atheists want to state a proposition like "God does not exist" or "God is a fictitious being" then they should be able to provide arguments and evidence for their position.

Many atheists have responded to the demand by saying that one cannot prove a universal negative. They say it's like trying to prove that invisible pink unicorns don't exist. As the meme says "prove to me the Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't exist and I'll use your method."

OK, let's give this a try:
  1. The property of color is defined as a visible property.
  2. An object that has a visible property must be at least visible in that property.
  3. An invisible object is defined as an object that is not visible (e.g. lacking any visible property.)
  4. The Invisible Pink Unicorn has the property of color (namely the color pink.)
  5. The Invisible Pink Unicorn lacks any visible property.
  6. Therefore, The Invisible Pink Unicorn is visible (from 1,2 and 4)
  7. Therefore, The Invisible Pink Unicorn is not visible (from 3 and 5)
As my argument shows, belief in an invisible pink unicorn requires believing in a contradiction, that it is visible and invisible at the same time. Any belief that entails a contradictory belief cannot possibly be true, so this serves as definitive proof that invisible pink unicorns cannot exist anywhere. This means that one can prove a universal negative; it is impossible for an invisible pink unicorn to be real.

So, now the burden rests on the atheist to disprove God in like manner. Remember, the meme says if I prove it, they will use my method. Now, of course many will try to offer arguments that are either invalid or unsound. But offering just any argument doesn't do the trick. A sound argument must support its conclusion with its premises, just as I did above. I made sure I defined my terms and I didn't make any leaps in assumption when laying out my premises. Therefore, my conclusion necessarily follows.

I was able to show that a universal negative can be proven and I was able to meet the atheists' challenge. What are the odds that they will give a serious attempt to actually act on their words and use my method?

Friday, April 12, 2013

Bible Contradictions - What's a Contradiction, Anyway?


We've all heard the charge that the Bible is full of contradictions. It seems easy to level the charge of "contradiction" at a passage or two that seem to be talking about the same thing, but don't match. However, a contradiction is a very specific thing, and many times people just don't understand what must happen in order for one statement to be considered a contradiction to another. Simply put, a contradiction means that someone is making a nonsense claim. They are saying something that cannot possibly be true. If a statement does have the ability to be true given additional information, then the statement isn't really a contradiction.

This may seem a little confusing, but let me clarify what I mean. Luckily this area has been very well travelled in the study of logic, so we have a solid foundation from where we can base our definition.  The Law of Non-Contradiction is one of the Three Standard Laws of Thought that Professor Ed L. Miller notes that all rational thinking has at its basis. 1 These laws are so simple that they will seem self-evident, even to anyone who hasn't studies critical thinking or philosophy. In fact, Miller says that without these three laws thought and discourse would be impossible.  Without them, "nothing we think or say makes any sense, not even this very sentence."

The first law is the Law of Identity, which simply means that a thing is equal to itself. If I have four children then it is true that I have four children.  The Law of Identity is used to understand different terms that always refer to the same thing.  For example, an unmarried man is a bachelor.  Bachelors and unmarried males are different phrases that refer to the exact same property some men have, so any time I use the word bachelor, I can substitute "unmarried man" and it doesn't change them meaning at all. Another example is "God is divine". If we understand the word "divine" to mean pertaining to God, then the sentence just repeats itself; it says the same thing twice. This Law may seem pretty silly, but you'll see how important it is as we come to the next one.

The Second Law is the one that gets to the heart of what we're trying to understand: the Law of Non-Contradiction. The Law of Non-Contradiction says that a thing cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. Using our example above, if it is true that I have four children, then it cannot be true that I do not have four children at the same time and in the same manner.  Bachelors cannot be unmarried AND married at the same time. God cannot be both divine and not divine at the same time if we're using the word divine to mean the same thing.

You see, the Law of Non-Contradiction draws the line between true and false statements.  Look at the statement "Jesus is God."  It would make no sense to say "Jesus is God therefore Jesus cannot be divine."  Because of the Law of Identity above, we can see that this statement is really speaking nonsense.  Jesus either is God or He isn't. If He is God, then He's divine.  He can't be both divine and not-divine at the same time. 

The third law is known as the Law of Excluded Middle, and it simply means you have to choose a side.  Jesus is either divine or he isn't. Since the Law of Non-Contradiction says he cannot be both then when you have two contradictory statements, you cannot hold to both claims.  You must choose one and forfeit the other.

However, note that the Law of Non-Contradiction does specify that we must be talking about the same time and mean the same thing when we point to a claim as contradictory – and this is where most of our critics get into trouble.  The claim must be talking about the same time and the same manner or respect. If I travel to New York and pick up a post card for my wife, I'll write on the back "I'm in New York!" and drop it in the mail box.  If I fly home the next day, I'll beat that postcard to my home.  When my wife does receive the card, she's not going to say "this is a contradiction – you're right here!" It isn't contradictory since the statement was written when I actually was in New York.   Similarly, if I'm daydreaming about Tahiti while at my desk in Southern California, I may say "I'm not really here; I'm in Tahiti right now." Again, this isn't a contradiction since I'm using the words "not really here" to talk about a mental state, not a physical presence. So in order for something to be contradiction, it must hold to two opposing claims that mean the same thing at the same time.

References

1. Miller, Ed. L. Questions That Matter: An Invitation to Philosophy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996. p.32

Saturday, March 09, 2013

Is Belief in God the Same as Belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster?



Have you heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?  This thought experiment is supposed to show that belief in God is just as silly as believing  in a pasta-based supreme being.  However, when you look carefully, the comparison falls short pretty quickly.

Here's a short video clip from a recent apologetics class entitled "Science, God, and Knowing" where I look at the question of the Flying Spaghetti  monster.  Once you apply a little rational thought, you can see that the FSM cannot compare to the explanatory power of the Christian God when answering the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?"



Thursday, March 07, 2013

Holding to a Rational Belief

Photo By *christopher* 
Has someone ever told you that you should never try to tell someone else their faith is misplaced? They claim faith requires no proof; believing is the opposite of using facts and evidence, and since faith is a personal choice the underlying theology really doesn't matter much. Faith brings comfort to a person, but his comfort could be different than yours, so his faith is legitimate for him as much as yours is for you. This kind of thinking is why many people feel that everyone is entitled to believe as they choose.

Now, I agree that all have the right to their beliefs. But defining faith in this way misconstrues what the concept of faith is all about. The claim that "all faiths are simply a choice and are equally valid" really translates to "all faiths have an equal claim to truth and there's no way to discern whether any of them are true or not." That's just not the case. For example, I don't think anyone today would give Greek mythology serious consideration as a true belief. But how do we know that Greek mythology isn't a viable religion? Because we use reason and evidence to see that its claims about how the world works are unsupportable. They are internally inconsistent and externally incoherent with what we know about the world.

Similarly, we can look at today's different faith systems and see that they cannot all be true since they make competing claims about how the world works. As an example, the monotheistic faiths such as classical Judaism, Christianity and Islam claim that there is a God who is distinct and separate from His creation, while pantheistic faiths such as Vedanta Hinduism or the New Age hold to the idea that all is God. Now, one or the other may be true, but they certainly cannot both be true at the same time. Therefore, any faith that teaches all ways to God are equally valid, such as the Bah'ai faith, holds to a logical contradiction and can be dismissed simply as being illogical. It simply doesn't match the way the world works.

Now, I'm not saying that faith is unnecessary or that reason can do all the work. I am saying, though, that any faith that forces you to deny reason is a faith not worth holding. Christianity is a faith built on evidence: historical evidence of a real event. Of course it requires faith, but we can investigate its claims on the basis of history to see whether they stand up. Mormonism, for example, also makes claims about historical events, but they are unsupportable. If the things claimed in the Book of Mormons are demonstrably false, then it follows that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God and we have good reason for not believing Mormonism to be true.

I think it's a mistake to lump anything with a "religion" or "faith" tag into a category marked untestable. There certainly are ways we can make informed judgments about what we believe. That's why Paul tells us "examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good."

Being reasonable or rational means holding on to true beliefs. So, if someone questions of whether it's rational to be a Christian, that means we need to talk about whether Christian beliefs are true—which requires honest inquiry. To not check out the claims of Christianity when they very well may be true would be a very irrational thing to do.

Saturday, March 02, 2013

Atheism and Claims about All of Reality

How broad is the claim of atheism? Pretty broad. Atheism is defined as a worldview that makes certain definitive claims, the most notable being that God does not exists. But in order to make such a claim, one must have an almost infinite knowledge himself. For even deists, who hold that God created the universe and then basically let it play out under its own steam are still people who do not doubt God's existence. To say that God doesn't even exist in this sense strikes me as claiming much more than one could ever prove.

In his book A World of Difference, Kenneth Samples offers this anecdote. After attending a debate on the question "Does God Exist?", Ken had the opportunity to meet and talk with the atheist supporting the negative position. Here's his recount of the exchange:

I approached the atheist and shook his hand, thanking him for his efforts. Then I asked if it were correct to define atheism as the claim that "no god or gods are real" or that "no god or gods actually exist."

After some quibbling about the exact meaning of certain terms, the atheist essentially agreed that these two statements accurately reflected his position. I then asked, "If atheism asserts that 'no god is real' or that 'no god actually exists,' then isn't it making a universal claim about 'all reality' and 'all existence'?"

"In other words, as a point of logic,' doesn't the atheist, for his claim to be real, have to know all about reality and existence to rightly exclude any and every god. For example, to claim with any validity that there are no entities of a particular type (gods) in a given circle or set (reality), doesn't a person need a complete, comprehensive knowledge of that circle or set (reality)?’

I concluded my remarks by asserting that the atheist position could be valid only if atheists could justify their implicit claim to have a comprehensive knowledge of all reality and/or all existence. This position of seeming omniscience is, of course, beyond the capacity of any human being.

The atheist responded by saying that an incoherent god could not exist regardless of humanity's limited knowledge.

"That may well be true," I replied, "but then in order to maintain one's atheism a person must bear the burden of showing that every conceivable concept of God, is actually incoherent. This feat seems beyond the atheist's capacity."

Samples, Kenneth Richard. A World of Difference:  Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test. (Grand Rapids, MI:Baker Books, 2007).40.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

He Needs to Be Committed: Touré's Abortion Double-Speak

Last week we marked the 40th anniversary of the infamous Roe vs. Wade decision, a particularly bad bit of legalese that opened the door to more than 55 million babies being slaughtered in the U.S. to date. There were many articles commenting on the decision, from both pro-life and pro-choice camps. One that specifically caught my attention was from the MSNBC commentator Touré (nee Touré Neblett) who said in a video commentary that abortion had "saved my life."



Touré's monologue began:

"This week brought us the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and made me reflect on a moment from about fifteen years ago when I was in a committed relationship with a woman who I knew was just not the one.  She probably also knew it wasn't gonna work out… and then she got pregnant. And I was terrified. I've always known the importance of family and building kids into strong adults. And I know I would not be who I am if not growing up under the watchful eye of two people who loved me and loved each other.  I knew that pregnant woman and I were not gonna be able to form a lasting family. She decided it was best to have an abortion and days later she did; we did. And in some ways that choice saved my life. I was not yet smart enough or man enough to build a family or raise a child and I only would have contributed to making a mess of three lives."

Touré goes on to say how years later, after he married his current wife and they were expecting their first son, his belief in abortion was shaken by viewing 3-D ultrasounds.  "But in the end I remain committed to being pro-choice because I cannot image arguing against a woman's right to control her body and thus her life." He then dismisses babies in the womb by saying that "there is a reasonable and unsolvable medical debate about when exactly life begins."

Now, there is so much terrible thinking here that I could write a book about it, but if I were to be given the chance to talk with Touré, I think I would ask him two questions.  First, notice his opening sentence. He said, "I was in a committed relationship with a woman who I knew was just not the one." Hmm. What do you mean by "the one" Touré? The context seems to imply that you didn't truly love her (remember families are built by two people who love each other), or you at least didn't love her to commit to forsake all others for her. So, if that's the case, then tell me what exactly was it that you were committed to? How can one be in a "committed relationship" without committing to the person for life?  The only answer I can come up with is that he was committed to the sex. He states that "She probably also knew it wasn't gonna work out... and then she got pregnant." So, she got pregnant after they both knew it wasn't going to work out? Touré's understanding of commitment is about as fast and loose as one could have.

Secondly, Touré said that the experience of prenatal care and the technology of ultrasounds made him question his position on abortion. His only escape from the fact that medical science through ultrasound showed that there is a live human being in the womb was to assert that "there is a reasonable and unsolvable medical debate about when exactly life begins." Perhaps the debate is unsolvable medically (the question of the soul would be a metaphysical question and thus lie outside the purview of science), but my question would be so what? There is an equally unsolvable medical debate about when exactly life ends.  However, we don't throw up our hands and claim that we can never recognize a patient from a corpse.

No, Touré is doing a brilliant job of Orwellian double-speak here.  He wants to be committed when it's not a commitment and he claims that any small area of doubt is justification to deny the facts of science that are presented to him directly so he may hold onto his politically correct ideology. It is just this type of propaganda and self-denial that allows the slaughter of the innocents to continue. If Touré was truly held to "a woman's right to control her body and thus her life", he wouldn't stand for destroying both those bodies and those lives in utero, before they ever had a chance to grow and thrive.



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