Atheism and logic

Dear atheist, how do you account for the laws of logic within your atheism? Isn't logic a process of the mind? Isn't logical thought based upon the laws of logic? If logic is conceptual (a process of the mind) and certainly appear to be universally true, then what are the conditions that must be in place in order for the laws of logic to be universally true so that you can cite them and use them? How do the truth statements that we call the laws of logic obtain their universal nature? How do you know that the laws of logic are true? Do you just assume they are true?

Logic is formed with evidence.

End thread.

Originally posted by vivify
Logic is formed with evidence.

End thread.

Care to elaborate? How with what evidence?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Dear atheist, how do you account for the laws of logic within your atheism? Isn't logic a process of the mind? Isn't logical thought based upon the laws of logic? If logic is conceptual (a process of the mind) and certainly appear to be universally true, then what are the conditions that must be in place in order for the laws of logic to be universally ...[text shortened]... rsal nature? How do you know that the laws of logic are true? Do you just assume they are true?

Dear theist,

Atheist has left the building.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Dear atheist, how do you account for the laws of logic within your atheism? Isn't logic a process of the mind? Isn't logical thought based upon the laws of logic? If logic is conceptual (a process of the mind) and certainly appear to be universally true, then what are the conditions that must be in place in order for the laws of logic to be universally ...[text shortened]... rsal nature? How do you know that the laws of logic are true? Do you just assume they are true?

Dear Christian, how do you account for the lack of logic within your theism?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Dear atheist, how do you account for the laws of logic within your atheism?

Dear theist. How does theism make any difference to the situation? Surely you do not claim that God actually created logic and was illogical prior to doing so?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Dear theist. How does theism make any difference to the situation? Surely you do not claim that God actually created logic and was illogical prior to doing so?

Dear atheist, It would be interesting to see you answer a question once without a question mark at the end of your own answer.

Surely you do not claim that God actually created logic and was illogical prior to doing so?

That is a good point. How would God HAVE the logic to CREATE logic ?

But I didn't see where Fetch said God created the laws of logic.
You could bolster your complaint with me if you could show me that Fetch said - God created the laws of logic.

If the theist's position is that these laws of logic are as eternal and uncreated as God Himself, then I think we do have a different situation. You asked "How does theism make any difference to the situation?"

The difference is Theism's uncreated laws of logic as part of the character of an uncreated Mind verses whatever you as a atheist propose as the alternative.

What DO you propose ?

The laws of logic are an illusion ?
The laws of logic existed apart from any evolved logical mind?
The laws of logic were created as a result of the evolution of logical mind/s?
Something entirely different?
Something else that has again eluded my poor reading comprehension skills?


Or maybe you're not committed to have to offer an explanation as all burden rests on the theist ?

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
Dear theist,

Atheist has left the building.

Was it getting a little too hot in there? 😉

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Dear Christian, how do you account for the lack of logic within your theism?

Would you care to elaborate?

Also, do you have any answers to the questions I asked?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Was it getting a little too hot in there? 😉

Yep - someone was overthinking simple concepts and their head was about to explode. 😛

Originally posted by vivify
Logic is formed with evidence.

End thread.

Actually I think this is an interesting point. My view is that logic is a formal language with grammatical rules for generating sentences. For example, Classical logic has reductio ad absurdum (If A implies a contradiction it is false, so not(A) is true), or insertion (if A is true then (A or B) is true), and the double negative rule (if not(not(A)) then A), as allowed operations, so we can deduce the law of divided middle as a consequence - suppose P is any proposition:

1) Assume not (P or not(P))
2) Assume P
3) (P or not(P)) - From (2) by or insertion.
4) Not P - (3) contradicts (1) and depends on (2) so the converse of (2) follows by reductio.
5) P or not(P) - follows from (4) by or insertion and depends only on (1).
6) not(not(P or not(P))) - (5) contradicts (1) and depends on it so the reductio rule shows the initial assumption of (1) is false.
7) P or not(P), from the double negative rule applied to 6.

The last step (7) would not be agreed to by intuitionistic logicians. They regard the double negative rule as flawed (not unhappy does not imply happy). So, although I'm happy to believe the result, it hangs on a collection of grammatical rules and is only true if the propositions exhaust all the possibilities. Classical logic is expected to preserve truth, while intuitionistic logic preserves provability, so which you use for a particular purpose depends on the problem. Logic controls what one can consistently say about the world, it does not control the world.

What I'm getting at is that I think Fetchmyjunk is right to point out that logic is dependent on mind. In fact, he might also point out that all scientific theories are written in a language (typically US English with additional technical terms) and have rules for making deductions. You could regard a scientific theory as a program for a Universal Turing Machine, one simply gives it the theory and asks it some propositional question to some precision, where the user can specify any finite precision - for example, given these quark masses, these coupling strengths and the Standard Model of Particle Physics, what is the mass of the proton to 3 significant figures - and the machine would click, buzz, hum and churn out the answer that you could then compare with experiment. A fundamental assumption of all Science is that this process will work and that nature is reliably describable in this way. Our only justification for this is that it seems to have worked quite well so far...

This is where I think the problem with Fetchmyjunk's O.P., as a critique of Science and Logic it's fine, but he seems to want to make God the provider of logic. Since I'm almost certain that deductive rules are not specified by this he seems to have a theory of natural logic. So his argument seems to be predicated on the notion that logic is built into the structure of the universe just because it can describe the universe and there's no reason to believe that - "Ceci n'est pas une pipe."

Originally posted by sonship
Dear atheist, It would be interesting to see you answer a question once without a question mark at the end of your own answer.

It would be good to see a question sensible enough to be given a straight answer. Sadly, I rather doubt such a question will be coming from you. Your penchant for loading questions is well known.

That is a good point. How would God HAVE the logic to CREATE logic ?
Exactly. The OP is a loaded question as it presumes logic must be created.

But I didn't see where Fetch said God created the laws of logic.
And I never suggested he did. I asked him how he accounts for them - and pointed out that God creating them was not a reasonable option.

You could bolster your complaint with me if you could show me that Fetch said - God created the laws of logic.
I didn't have a 'compliant', nor do I need to show you anything for you to answer the question - which is: How do you as a theist account for logic?

If the theist's position is that these laws of logic are as eternal and uncreated as God Himself, then I think we do have a different situation.
Clearly not. If the laws of logic are a brute fact, then theism has nothing to do with it.

The difference is Theism's uncreated laws of logic as part of the character of an uncreated Mind
Ha ha. OK, so there is a difference, your idea is just plain stupid. No reasonable definition for the term 'logic' would make is part of the character of your God figure.

verses whatever you as a atheist propose as the alternative.
Depending on what is meant by the word, but taking it in the spirit of the OP, I would say that logic is just a brute fact - and a necessary one.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Dear atheist, how do you account for the laws of logic within your atheism? Isn't logic a process of the mind? Isn't logical thought based upon the laws of logic? If logic is conceptual (a process of the mind) and certainly appear to be universally true, then what are the conditions that must be in place in order for the laws of logic to be universally ...[text shortened]... rsal nature? How do you know that the laws of logic are true? Do you just assume they are true?

I am not convinced that logic is in itself any sort of truth statement and certainly not universally true.

"If A then A" is a statement of logic but in what sense is it true?

I am not convinced either that we can use logic to show truth, though I do see we can use it to make inferences about statements - but that is redundant really and not helpful. "If A then A" has the same relationship to truth as "If I am the Queen of England then I am the Queen of England." In each case, the relationship to truth is non existent. To establish truth or falsehood, I would have to investigate something about the status of A or the status of the Queen of England and that activity lies outside the field of logic and is not based on examining statements. It is based on examining the world, in which either A or the Queen of England may (or may not) be found and the truth of my statemenet established or refuted.

Originally posted by finnegan
I am not convinced that logic is in itself any sort of truth statement and certainly not universally true.

Rather than 'true', what he means is 'valid'. So he is asking how you account for the fact that logic works ie if we say something is logical we can typically rely on it, and if something is illogical, we can't. I don't think he is talking about formal logic either.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
Yep - someone was overthinking simple concepts and their head was about to explode. 😛

We do not want anyone's head to explode !