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samr

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I always find it funny when I hear Xian apologists say God can do anything - except the logically contradictory.

The "Higher Order", is by definition beyond us, so whatever it is can do what it wants. Remember the couplet of the Mad Arab, "That is not Dead which can Eternal Lie and in Strange Eons of Time, even Death may Die."

Your imagination is the limit. Literally.

As for God being beyond logic, sure. Logic is basically just a tool, as is the scientific method. To talk about God as beyond logic and scientific reasoning you need some other way of knowing the divine reality.

I find those other ways of knowing quite deranged and dangerous myself.

Edited by Jorge
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If a person doesn't apply the laws of logic to a subject, it is not possible to have a discussion with them about it.

The purpose of discussion is to learn, to reach objective knowledge.

At a minimum, you seek to understand the other's position. After all it is not possible to debate anything without that understanding.

But how can they understand you without employing logic?

Therefore no discussion is possible.

What should be done with such a person?

Sure, you could try to explain to them that they *need* logic. But they would have to choose to employ logic to understand you.

Is it enough to say you disagree and leave it at that?

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The only conversations I have had that went anywhere with religious people were with Moderates, people with at least half a working rational faculty. Even then I was not able to talk about metaphysical truth but have gone somewhere talking about concrete issues like the psychology, sociology and history of religion. Properly confronted these people can be made, if nothing else, to see the benefits of questioning religious authority on real life issues.

"Says who?" was one of the greatest moral achievements in human history.

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Vik, maybe discussion is not possible, but that is still true?

The possibilty of discussion, and the truth of propositions are different issues.

The claim you posted to start this thread CANNOT be true.

In order to know whether a proposition of interest is true, you have to know something else by means of which you judge it to be true. If you want to know whether a beam will support a roof you have to know something about the materials and how they are arranged.

In order to proceed from what you know to what you don't yet know, you have to employ logic.

A person who permits contradictions in their thinking violates this basic condition for truth.

Furthermore anything that exists is what it is. It cannot be otherwise. There can be no contradictions. Therefore there can be no gods who allow contradiction. If there were gods, they would have to be constrained by the laws of logic and other basic facts about the nature of things.

Axioms forbid creation ex nihilo, supremacy of consciousness, actual infinities, and many other things implied by religious belief. That rules out all forms of theism except one: a being that arose out of the chaos of nature to rearrange given material in accordance with the Law of Identity and become master of forces.

But then what you have isn't theism.

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