The Grand DesignFollow

You're done gonna get moderated!

Sounds right up your alley.

You realize that is crap you entirely invented on the spot right? There is no system in logic that requires you to sort something based on whether it is a characteristic, belief, or action. You can transform any part of speech into a noun or verb in logic, and it is frequently done for technical syllogisms. It just happens to be painful to read, and most people won't understand it.

You can, you just can't be a rational person as well. People aren't perfect logical beings; they ***** it up lots of times. The active threads on this forum about people overreacting are entirely about people throwing away logic and letting anger and fear guide them.

No, I'm explaining why someone might choose to throw intellect away for emotion. Hiding from a danger you know is not there and in a way that probably wouldn't protect you regardless is entirely irrational and illogical. It shows how and why people can choose to be irrational. It feels good to be wrapped up under a blanket; the fear goes away even though the fear was baseless. Most religions offer opportunities to feel good. You have a protector, a guide, a teacher, a savior, one who can do no wrong and will always be there for you. That's a lot of good reasons for people to ignore that nagging voice that says "you know this is all a lie."

It's fairly easy for people to trick themselves. One of the simplest demonstrations is how people can easily mistake arousal from fear for sexual arousal.

That's your discussion. I was having a discussion with Samira about whether a scientific understanding of the world contradicts a religious one.

Edited, Sep 11th 2010 2:07am by Allegory

It's those wily interns, outfoxing the news crew *every* time.

Jokes are funnier when you point out why they are funny.

False and easily disproven:

A = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
B = {1, 2, 6, 7, 8}
C = {4, 5, 6, 7, 8}

A∩B = {1, 2}
B∩C = {6, 7, 8}
A∩C = {4, 5}
A∩B∩C = {}

Thank you for playing, try again tomorrow.

Gbaji you're taking it like allegory is saying rational as in a person is either wholly rational or wholly irrational, which I really don't think is what he's getting at. As I understand it, he thinks that being intelligent and rational, the act of believing would require a suspension of said rationality regardless of whether a person is rational in the rest of his life. I'm under the impression that he's focusing his rules around that specific area of life.

If Al's actually trying to make a statement about someone just being rational or irrational, then it's indeed an absurd statement, as people can be rational about some things and irrational about other things. In fact, I would say it's completely impossible to be perfectly rational.

Edited, Sep 13th 2010 9:35pm by Xsarus

Wow, that was really dumb. Even with circles that's not true, much less with logic.

I think the DEA would be greatly interested in studying whatever gbaji is on.

Any you wonder why I stated several posts ago that your problem is that you assume that "religious" and "intelligent" are contradictory. I don't. Most people don't. This is what I've been trying to get across to you this whole time. Religion and science do not interact. They don't contradict unless someone goes out of their way to make them do so. What you're reacting to is a group of atheists who, for the last century or so have gone out of their way to convince everyone that science and religion are at odds and only one can be "right".

This entire thread is based on that assumption. I believe that assumption is false though.

Just to note, everything between these two lines of plus signs are not directly addressing the argument, but gbaji's flawed logic and understanding of set theory. It's a personal pet peeve of mine. Everything after them is directly addressing the argument.

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You're inventing terms once again. "Contiguous set" doesn't exist as a technical term.

Whether you meant it or not, what you literally said was categorically false. You stated "If Set A overlaps with Set B, and Set B overlaps with Set C, and Set C overlaps with Set A. There *must* be a set which contains the overlaps of all three sets." And then MDenham demonstrated formally and I demonstrated informally that this was false.

It's not our fault you didn't say what you meant.


Once again a contrived term and situation. You're arbitrarily creating constraints to try and create a bounded situation in which you are correct. "Identity factors" is not a formal term which has any meaning beyond that one you invent for it at whim according to your convenience.

It's still ludicrous.

1. Dexterous with your left hand.
2. Dexterous with your right hand.
3. Non-ambidextrous.

Since you alone created the term "identity factors" and therefore control its definition at whim I can't definitively say these fit such a term. However they appear to do so. You can be any two of the above simultaneously, but not all three simultaneously.

You are falsely concluding that because you can envision a situation in which a person can be a part of all three sets that the result of the form is that an instance of being an element of all three sets is necessarily possible. To be terse, because something can be true you are concluding it to be necessarily true.



The next few comments are going to be negative statements about you, but I want to convey that I am not making them in an attempt to dismiss you, because I seek to destroy your credibility, or because I hold ill will towards you; I state them because I genuinely believe them to be true. You are bad at logic and set theory. You have deliberately tried to invent rules and terms and use them in your arguments. The form of my argument is perfectly valid, and that should be easy to see. The possibility that I am wrong exists solely in the truth or falsity of my premises--the one you later go on to question, the assumption that religious and intelligence are logically exclusive.

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But I don't believe they are ever all three simultaneously, nor that they can possibly be. I fully believe that there are people who are intelligent, rational, and then later religious. But it comes back to the description of a scientist being in the lab Monday through Saturday and then leaving it to go to church on Sunday.

I also believe that I adequately proved that religious and science/reason are mutually exclusive with the assertion that religion claims at least one idea to be necessarily true and science/reason holding none to be necessarily true.

I don't believe he's being rational from a scientific perspective with his decision to believe in religion, though I do believe he has many other external reasons to make that choice.

Edited, Sep 16th 2010 7:28pm by Allegory

Of numbers? Of letters? Of picket fence posts? Is this going to be another case where you're arguing academic nonsense and I point out to you that the real world doesn't work like that?



Um. Wonderful. I misspoke. Excuse me for assuming you were capable of seeing what I was saying within the context of the conversation we were having.



Yes. Hence why I appologized for not being 100% perfectly clear about what I was saying. You guys get on me for being verbose, but then jump on me when I don't spend 15 more sentences explaining in excruciating detail what conditions I'm applying to some example I'm giving to help illustrate a point. One would normally assume that the example being used is relevant to the case being examined and shouldn't nit pick about contrived conditions which don't technically fit the exact language used but which also fall well outside the context being discussed.

Sigh... Why do you guys insist on arguing the most irrelevant of points while ignoring the relevant aspects?



Don't get caught up on the terms. Remember, this is an example relating to the original statement you made. Try to keep the context in mind.



Now you're just playing word games. You've picked a third property which is conditional on the other two. As I said, you can certainly contrive specific cases where the claim you made earlier works, but that's generally the exception, and not the rule.

If you start with three individual properties, none of which have any specific relationship or dependencies on the others, and you can have any two of them, it's stands to reason that you can have any three of them as well. Note, I'm not saying that they always will, but that it's incorrect to simply assume that they can't all exist together.

Pick three things which aren't dependent. Like the example I gave earlier. Being left handed has nothing to do with hair color. And hair color has nothing to do with Sex. And Sex has nothing to do with handedness. Thus, if you can be any two of those, you can be all three.


If you recall, my first response about this was that you were assuming that "intelligent" and "religious" were actually contradictory. You then seem to have contrived a definition of "rational" to mean "someone who wont hold contradictory positions". It's similar to your "right handed/left handed/ non-ambidextrous" example. Both are contrived because the third property is specifically defined to be a conditions in which the first two can't be present together.


I correctly identified the flaw with your logic, regardless of how poorly I may have expressed it.



Yes. Assuming the sets aren't specifically contrived such that the third one can't include both of the others. Which is what you did in your starting example, and what you did in the handedness example, and what McDenam did with his number sets example. I'll freely admit that you can contrive conditions, but you have to specifically create them to be that way. They don't normally happen in the real world.





You are assuming a meaning of "religious" which is bizarre then. Someone is religious if they believe the tenants of their faith (and follow some form of organized religion). You seem to be contorting this into some strange sort of thought process going on at any given time. I'm not sure how useful that is.



That's not a contradiction though. Only if you assume that if one is "scientific" (which wasn't the term you used, it was "intelligent", but whatever) that they cannot hold to any belief which they cannot prove via science. Since most tenants of most faiths are within the realm of things which cannot be proven or disproved, then there is no contradiction. You seem to *also* have a bizarre definition of "science".

Science doesn't disprove religion, and religion doesn't disprove science. They exist in two separate areas. One actually has to work really hard to find areas in which they *can* make them appear to conflict. One such area is evolution, but even then you have to insist on a literal interpretation of one book of one religion *and* insist on an extension of evolutionary theory which isn't necessary.


I just find it interesting that someone who claims to hold science in such great regard works so hard to use science to make proofs which aren't necessary and don't actually provide any useful value or information at all. This is where I point out that atheists have been doing this for a century or so. That's not real science. You've just been convinced somewhere along the line that it is.




Now who's using imaginary meanings for words? You've defined intelligent to mean "non-relgious", and rational to mean "not able to be intelligent and religious at the same time". Um... surely you can see why I immediately called BS on your initial example? It's contrived to the gills. And for no reason other than to make a cheap attack on religion.