Christianity is illogical, how?

Question

I always hear how Christianity is illogical. So please show me which formal law of logica it violates. Show me the inheirant fallacy contained within the faith. You're supposed to be more intelligent than us, why not prove it in your answer.

The trinity is not illogical because it does not teach 1 + 1+ 1= 1 as you say it teaches that three things of the same essence make up the whole. I could say that three fruit make up one fruit basket, try harder.

You've excluded the possibility that God may use evil for a greater good. But that's not a formal law of logic. Give me the law of logic it breaks that makes it illogical.

I'm sorry if I was unclear, FORMAL LAW OF LOGIC. To show that Christianity believes some outlandish things does not make it illogical. It could still be foolish. It could still be false, but the claim usually made is that's illogical tell me how.

hajgora 7 good answer.

Abdul, your second response could've in no way been drawn from my analogy alone. So that's the first place you're wrong. Read the Nicene creed for more details. The nature of the Trinity was a major part of what makes up the creed.

Journey: Part one clearly says formal law. It's not an incomplete question. I'm going to go out now, so it may take me awhile to respond, but let me have it.

Michael I do understand logic. The first example would show something illogical about Christianity if it weren't a misrepresentation of what Christianity actually teaches. Secondly how does necessity constitue logic. I'm not saying you can't say a lot of things against Christianity, I'm just saying to call it illogical, which I've heard a lot, it seems someone needs to show a break in logic.

Journey, fine, let's expand the framework. Use any law of logic you want. Show how belief in Christianity is illogical. I do appreciate your well thought out answers. I don't need a primer on logic. I just felt the formal laws were the best place to start.

Far too many of you seem to be confusing unlikely with illogical.

To Don, something may be perfect at it's inception but the effects of the world mar it's perfection. That does not make it more powerful than it's creator, it's inability to sustain it's own perfection shows it to be weaker than it's creator.

And Journey, Christianity does not teach that women are the root of all woes it teaches that sin is, and a woman was one of it's first victims. Christianity treated and still does women with a lot more respect than they ever recieved in the ancient cultures, and in many current cultures where other worldviews hold sway. Take secular China where female children are killed because they can only have so many kids, and they find daughters not worthy of life.

To Warren, it might lead to the question who made God, but you have to ask is that a legitimate question. To say let's just leave it at why can't the universe have always been goes agains several scientific and philisophical evidences against the idea that the universe has always existed. Big Bang cosmology, the problems in traversing an actual infinite etc..

To anyone: Very very good response. As far as the Joseph thing goes I don't see why Joseph is not his father, I realize he's not the genetic donor, but I have many adopted friends who believe that equally they have two fathers. I disagree that logic is more useful for language than matters of truth. But I suppose a great deal of the arguement would hinge upon our views of truth. I hold to the correspondence view of truth. A statement is true if it corresponds to the way the world actually is. So statements themselves are matters of truth, and if you disprove a statement you show how the truth they exposit is false. Colors are not strictly speaking just opinion any more, something is blue if it reflects blue light. I suppose it's possible that we all might see blue differently. But blue appeals to something objective so even if there was no consensus that the sky was blue it would not change the truth of that statement.

Christianity does not teach that the Bible is true because the Bible says so. Christianity teaches that the Bible is the Word of God. Biblical innerancy is largely a matter of faith. It's not circular in that if you falsify the claims in the Bible, you show that it couldn't be the word of a flawless God. Lastly it's not accurate to say that Christianity is about faith but not facts, and science is all about the facts. First because as you noted there are truth claims in Christianity, such as Pilote oversaw Jesus trial, it's a fact that can be proven or disprove, not a matter of faith. And as archealogy showed us fifty years, ago a man named Pilote was in charge of that region at that time. Also evidence doesn't speak for it's self. Humans read the evidence and decide how it fits. Also science itself certain philisophical assumptions that it relies on just to continue. Such as that all of the world is an orderly place, that can be rationally categorized.

The universe will operate on the same laws tommorow that it has since it's beginning etc. These things are not proven, they are a matter of faith themselves.

Answer 1

Okay, let's start with some fundamentals, here. Who was/is Jesus' father? The Gospels give the long heredity list to link Joseph back to David and then they say that Joseph was Jesus' step-father. This is the illogical part: Who's the daddy? One daddy to prove one point and another Daddy to prove another point? Only one of these can be actually, literally correct. As a modern person, I'm sure you will probably say that God is Jesus' father. So Jesus wasn't "of the house of David". Or will you change your mind and say that Joseph was Jesus' father? I don't have to tell you what THAT means to the faith.
Tell me the truth of this one question and then we will talk about logic.
Logic actually consists of making a statement and then either proving or disproving the validity of that statement. Logic doesn't necessarily say anything about truth. It says something about language.
If, for example, I was to say that the sky is blue, what could I do to prove that it is a valid statement? I would ask people to look at the sky. At some times of day and in some weather conditions, the sky does not appear as the color I call "blue". So I would have to add conditions to refine my statement. The new statement would be that at in the middle of a clear day, when the sun is shining and there are not a lot of clouds, the sky looks blue. Most people could look at the sky or even just imagine the sky and they would agree with me. But some person could look at the sky and see the same color that I see and call it by a different name. Or a colorblind person could look and not see blue. I would get the same argument from each of these people: the sky, they would say, isn't blue. I could only counter by saying that according to a concensus of the majority of people I have asked, the color that they see in the sky is what English-speaking people call "blue". So my logic would be proved by concensus.
Maybe we would like to prove religious truth in the same way: by the agreement of other people. Is that valid? I don't know.
Before we could begin to prove or disprove any validity to a religion, we would have to know what statements that religion makes and then we would have to decide what we will accept as an authority to either prove or disprove our postulated statements.
So what are the basic statements that Christianity makes?
That it is possible for a soul to live forever.
sub A) The spirit of God along with Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
sub B) A human spirit.
Many other proposed statements depend on this one. How do we go about proving or disproving this statement? Some people will accept that the words of the Bible are the authority in this matter. Other people want more proof. Unlike the question about the color of the sky- which can be answered merely by our agreement that whatever color we see in the sky, we will call it blue- this issue can't be decided by a simple concensus. It requires data that no living person actually has access to. Logic- incomplete though it is in matters where real, objective truth is the goal- cannot even tell us whether the statement that a soul can live forever is a valid statement. We can never see the far end of forever. We can't communicate with souls that don't have bodies- at least not in a fully believable way that would be acceptable to all concerned parties. People who believe in Christianity can show that there is some internal logic to it and people who don't believe can still question its validity. In all honesty, neither of these classes of people very often look at the central, foundational statements of the religion. Those looking for a quick and easy point to prove spend all their time examining minor issues.
The lesson that we should have all learned in the past few centuries is that religion and science exist in separate domains. You can't prove either according to the rules of the other. That isn't strictly correct. Religion is about belief and believers can choose to believe science or not, but belief doesn't change scientific fact. Science is about fact and proof and many religious people make the mistake of trying to apply the rules of science to religion, hoping to make a belief-system scientifically true. Belief doesn't work that way. Belief is merely about hope. Hope doesn't make scientific sense; it only makes personal sense. It is better for a person to hope than to feel hopeless. That could be proven by a study of human lives. So I will ask a third question about Christianity: is a something whose major function is to make people hopeful? If it is, it is good. No further proof is required. It's good because I think it's good to hope. If Christianity has some other function that does not let people be hopeful, that function is bad. Because I say so; because I say that it is bad to be hopeless.
Now ask me why I don't like it when some Christians tell me about hell, but realize that I've already answered.
Here is your broken formal law: Christianity attempts to prove itself by circular reasoning, by saying that the Bible is true because the Bible says that the Bible is true.
Matters of faith are either personally true and personally valuable or worthless. Law of the excluded middle.

Answer 2

I don't think I am any smarter than you but some of the things Christianity says are illogical.

By the way I consider myself a christian but that doesn't mean I can't think.

Here is one example.
The first thing that someone should be considering is whether the idea of sin is actually real.

If God is supposed to be perfect how could She have made anything or anyone that wasn't perfect.
Think about it. The idea of sin assumes certain things about God that seem highly unlikely.

First it assumes a God who is too incompetent to organize a simple educational field excursion and figure out a way to get all of the students home safely.

How likely is this that God would not be smart enough to come up with a plan for our salvation that is going to work?

It also assumes that God must have created us imperfect if we are sinners.

One might assume that God would be able to create someone perfect each and every time if he chose to. Assuming God is capable of this, then it follows logically that we must be perfect creations if we are actually creations of this perfect God.

Unless of course you are saying that God chose to create us imperfect.

If God created us imperfect then anything that may go wrong is Gods fault, not ours. This seems a bit illogical at best so I think that we need to assume that What God creates would have to be perfect.

If this is the case and Gods creations are perfect, then nothing that we can do could change what God created perfect and make it imperfect unless we think that we are more powerful than God is.

How likely is it that we the creation could be more powerful than the creator. I personally find this idea somewhat amusing, and a bit absurd.

Religion tells us that God is perfect. If this is true then it could hardly be logically for Gods creations to be considered to be anything less than perfect.

If this is the case and we are perfect creations of a perfect God then Nothing that we can ever do could possibly change this perfection that God willed, unless we were so powerful that our choices could override and change the will of God.

How likely is that????

Think about it.

The idea of sin is simple nonsense; a lie made up about God by religion.

Love and blessings
don

Source --- Course in miracles

Answer 3

I don't think it's necessarily illogical; Christianity just defies human experience.

The Trinity. One God, yet three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This isn't a paradox? You tell us.

The Virgin Birth. Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit, bore a Son, and yet remains Virgin. This defies natural human experience.

The Death and Resurrection. Jesus died and yet he is risen, and ascends to Heaven.

I understand these things are not logic per se, but perhaps this is what its detractors are thinking of.

All the attention given to saints. In some of the sects, such as Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, there is so much devotion given to saints as to verge on polytheism.

I don't think that many non-Christians believe they are more intelligent than Christians. Perhaps they think they are more practical, or have more common sense. Religious belief is part of a cultural upbringing, so it can exist alongside very high intelligence. Some of the greatest scientists, philosophers, and heads of state were or are Christian.

There are also paradox and lapes of common sense in other religions, so don't feel bad. Consider, for example, Islam, Hinduism, and Scientology.

Answer 4

First you must state what "laws" of logic you are referring to as there are many... Informal, formal, and symbolic logic - Syllogistic logic, Predicate logic, Modal logic, Deduction and reasoning, Mathematical logic, Philosophical logic, Logic and computation, Argumentation Theory. Pick a category and I'll be happy to debate with you as christianity is illogical in many ways within many systems of thought. However, why is this important? If you believe.....then believe, but don't waste time asking incomplete questions.

EDIT: Well therin lies the problem. You want us to define christianity as illogical within a small frame using only formal logic (the parameters that you want), however formal logic usually relates to language usage. Also, I have never said that it was illogical within formal logic ALONE. I think that you need a brief Logic 101 lesson. Logic is for constructing PROOFS, which give us RELIABLE CONFIRMATION of the truth of the proven proposition. Logic is the study of reason, that is, of RATIONAL ways of drawing or establishing conclusions. Maybe a better question would be how is christianity rational? Furthermore, christianity is no more illogical that Dr. Suess stories.....it is belief in them as TRUTH that is illogical. Big difference. The idea of a talking snake within fiction is not illogical, but belief in it's reality is illogical. The metaphor of a virgin birth is not illogical, but belief that it occurred as fact is very illogical. There are many more such strange and illogical things that christians swallow as factual. But perhaps most importantly, absolute belief in the truth and relevance of the ideas of poverty stricken, bronze age fishermen and sheep herders as some cosmic truth that applies to everyone in every age is not only illogical, but ascinine and ridiculous.

Personally I don't publically define christians as illogical, though I believe that they are. The crux of it for me is that belief and worship of a god that displays the most negative of human emotions is an injustice against humanity and immoral.

Answer 5

It's illogical because Christianity believes in an omnipotent omnitient god that begat his child upon a human woman without even touching her. This child walked on water, turned water into wine and rose from the dead. Not to mention that Christians believe that a man parted the red sea and turned a stick into a snake.

Honestly, whats logical about any of that?

Answer 6

It is not logical to fill in holes in your knowledge by making up a god to fill them. It does not answer any question, merely delays it.

Where did the Universe come from?

Answering God made it leads right to the question where did God come from?

If you answer that he was always here you could have just saved a step and said the Universe was always here. You have added nothing except a step that has no supporting evidence.

A little discussion of this principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

Answer 7

To quote George Carlin...

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told.

Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man -- living in the sky -- who watches everything you do, every minute of every day.

And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!

But He loves you."

If this is logical to you, then you are beyond reason and reality...

Answer 8

To me, it's illogical put all your faith into an outdated book. Some Christians will never even consider the idea that not all the Bible is 100% true.

Also, to believe that everyone who doesn't believe in Jesus burns in hell forever, even if they believe in God...yeah that's illogical too.

Answer 9

"If God is all-powerful, then he must be able to abolish evil; if God is all-loving, then he must wish to abolish evil; but evil exists, therefore God cannot be both all-powerful and all-loving." (John Hick)

Occam's Razor: "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity", or, in other words, the fewer assumptions an explanation of a phenomenon depends upon, the better.

Occam's razor is sometimes applied to the existence of God; if the concept of God does not help to explain the universe, it is argued, God is irrelevant and should be cut away (Schmitt 2005).

I think the problem is that you do not understand just what 'logical' and 'illogical' mean. Christianity is illogical because it has tenants that logically contradict eachother (see first example) and because it's explanation of the universe (God) is an unnecessary assumption.

Answer 10

Let's start from the beginning of your holy book:

An old man in the sky creates the first man from dust, the first woman from a rib-bone, a talking snake and a tree that produces magic apples???? This story sounds "logical" to you???...Please.

Watch this video and then get back to me: http://www.godisimaginary.com/video7.htm

btw: Do you think that believing in invisible hobgoblins is illogical? You can offer no more evidence of your god than I can offer for my hobgoblins. It would be ILLOGICAL for you to believe in one and not the other.