Need help with an argument
Offline Hi everyone, I was wondering if I could get your advice. A while back I was having an argument with a girl over religion, me being an atheist, her being a muslim hating, Bush loving, bible beating christian who hadn't see any of the world outside her town. One of her arguments was that reason was a bad thing, that too much logic was not healthy for a person. How do you counter this? It blew me away! How could someone argue that reason and logic are bad? I didn't know where to start. It's like she rejected every technological/medical/scientific/(insert own ideas ad infinitum) advancement ever made! Reason and logic are what seperates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom! Reason says "if your hungry, catch a fish". Faith says "if your hungy, pray for a fish". Somebody (i can't remember who) said "if you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day, if you give a man a religion, he will die of starvation praying for a fish." Are these just people who are beyond reach?
- Login to post comments
Hey, Medievalguy.
This is classic Christian anti-intellect. There's not a whole lot you can do but to try to convince here that reason is a good thing. (Of course you can't use reason for everything like inherently subjective things like beauty, art, music etc.)
But this is how I would approach it. I make no promises it will work.
First off she needs to understand what logic is. Basically, logic is language patterns that when used help use make correct conclusions. There's nothing bad with using it. The Bible uses (or at least attempts to use) logic all the time, especially in Paul's writings.
Of course, too much logic could be unhealthy. Too much of anything is unhealthy. (BTW, how does one have too much logic?) But that doesn't mean that one should accept illogical arguments about objective claims like "Jesus is God."
Don't equate logic and reason though, although an illogical argument is irrational. Reason needs a basis. Reason needs evidence.
I would argue it from a theist's standpoint. According to the Bible, God made us in his image. God made our mind, and gave us language. God gave us the capacity to use logic and reason. If God gave us this, then why is it so bad?
If she thinks that somehow sin corrupted the mind, she should understand sin corrupted other things too. She also should believe that emotions are just as unhealthy. Her "feeling" God during some sort of religion experience is just as unreliable as someone using logic to argue against God.
Hope my rambling helps.
I would simply point out that for her to formulate that argument, she must have followed some sort of chain of reasoning. Yes, however flawed it may be, Christians do that as well. All arguments, however silly, are based on some (however twisted) form of chain of logic. Her logic is extremely twisted, but she is still attempting to use logic to show that using logic isn't good.
In fact, it is absoltely necessary for all higher cognition. It is a brain function that is special to human beings.
The only way someone could argue without using logic is if they simply had that area of the brain cut out.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
You might also want to look at this related thread deludedgod started.
I would simply ask her "Are you fucking serious?" Nothing more really needs to be said.
Pull out a gun, shoot her in the face, and respond: "You're right. Reason is overrated." LOL. All kidding aside, you cannot hope to use reason to defeat the rejection of reason itself. My suggestion, don't waste your time. There's no easy solution here. Perhaps the best option you have is to simply be a positive example of an atheist/humanist, and if enough people do this, maybe theists will begin to reconsider their views of the other side, and then ideally reach a point when they question their own views.
and to think I dated her.... >.< *shame* The naiveity got to be so much I couldn't take it. But she's not the only person of this mindset that i've come across sadly...
Did she even explain what she means by her argument? Can she provide any examples how reason and logic can limit or harm the quality of living? Of course living through review-articles can't be good for you, but people use reason and logic everyday.
Ask her if she agrees to this: Mike is taller than John and Phil is taller than Mike. Thus John is not the tallest of the three. The result is not rational nor logical.
Ask her to prove it in a controlled scientific experiement!! In this case it would be quasi-experimental or correlational. There would have to first be some type of relationship with more logic and some type of emotional distress, decrease in well-being, or weak sense of self etc............
However, I don't think this is a question that scientists are asking. The closest I can think of is the relationship between intelligence and psychiatric disorders, which there is none.
"Those who think they know don't know. Those that know they don't know, know."
I don't think she could handle a logical exercise of that magnitude. I think her argument was that Logic and Reason can take a person away from god, that it starts to make you question the church, and that is bad. Sorta like a pastor telling his flock that anything anyone says against what he says is the work of the devil. That way it eliminates any room for free thought and questioning. If we can't shoot and kill these types of people (which is morally wrong and would kill our PR rating faster than we killed them) my only solution is to out breed them. It's also a more fun way to defeat them. ^_^ (ok, so i was kidding with the last bit of this post)
She's not the only Christian that criticized reason (see my sig).