An Introduction to Logic and Reasoning Skills (Part 2)

There are over 7 billion people in the world, and with each person on the planet comes a unique perspective on the nature of things.

People are born into different families, different countries and different cultures, all of which shape the way each of us perceive the world.

We are also different from each other in many other ways. Male and female; fair-skinned and black; straight, gay, transgender; disabled, blind, colour-blind. So many things combine to make us very different from each other.

When it comes to thinking about each other’s beliefs and opinions, these too are many and varied. What we think about the nature of the world, reality, purpose of life, meaning of things, morality, religion, and God even, our beliefs are not necessarily going to be the same as what other people think. When we consider the multitude of influences that go into making us who we are, it is easy to see why this is the case.

So with this in mind our starting-point for evaluating another person’s beliefs and opinions must surely be that of asking questions. For example:

• Why do they believe that?
• When did they acquire these beliefs?
• What has led them to continue having these beliefs?
• How are my beliefs different to theirs?
• Where might we agree on this issue?

And so on…

Of course, if we all have our own unique beliefs and opinions then how do we decide which of them are reliable or true, if any?

In his book “The Problem of Philosophy”, the Philosopher Bertrand Russell illustrated this point in the following manner:

“To make our difficulties plain, let us concentrate attention on the table. To the eye it is oblong, brown and shiny, to the touch it is smooth and cool and hard; when I tap it, it gives out a wooden sound… but as soon as we try to be more precise our troubles begin. Although I believe that the table is 'really' of the same colour all over, the parts that reflect the light look much brighter than the other parts, and some parts look white because of reflected light. I know that, if I move, the parts that reflect the light will be different, so that the apparent distribution of colours on the table will change. It follows that if several people are looking at the table at the same moment, no two of them will see exactly the same distribution of colours, because no two can see it from exactly the same point of view… The same thing applies to texture… and shape.” [1]

So if people are having different experiences of the table at the same time, whose experience is the most valid or true?

Let’s illustrate this point another way using a well-known Indian parable:

In a village three blind men were touching an elephant. They were asked to describe what they were feeling. The first blind man, holding the elephant's leg, said he was touching the trunk a great tree. The second blind man, holding the elephant's tail said he was holding a rope. The third blind man, touching the elephant’s side, said he was standing in front of a great wall. Each blind man was convinced he was right and others were wrong, even though they were all touching the same elephant.

The table and elephant analogies suggest there is no such thing as Absolute Truth; that in fact all truth is relative to the individual and many philosophers will accept that this when it comes to social, moral and religious truth-claims. However, this is not to say we are now living in a world devoid of any truth or sense of certainty.

For instance, we can’t drive up to a gas station and decide to fill up our vehicle’s fuel tank with milk. Everyone at the gas station would agree that in order to make their vehicle work they need to put gas, or petrol in it. A combustion engine will not run on milk. Even if someone insists it does, they will soon come to realise they are wrong, especially when they attempt to start their car and drive off. So although someone next to me may have been born in a different country, have a different skin colour, is the opposite gender to me, and different in all manner of other ways, both of us would agree that we need to put gas into our vehicle in order to continue driving it.

One final point. Sometimes a disagreement between two people is simply about the meaning of the words we use. For instance, consider the person who believes the earth is flat versus the one who believe it is not. Both would say that the earth is “Round”, but both would also clearly mean different things by this.

[1] Taken from chapter 1, “Appearance and Reality”.

An Introduction to Logic and Reasoning Skills (Part 1)

When discussing and evaluating issues it is important to be able to present our opinions in a logical and reasonable manner. 

For example, I am sure you have witnessed this type of exchange in the comments section on YouTube: 

• Person #1: I know the earth is flat but Illuminati’s created the earth round to make people not believe in God
• Person #2: Haha you idiot
• Person #1: Insult is the first proof that someone knows he lost ... He will insult you instead of understanding why
• Person #2: Knows I lost huh. Again, you are a moron
• Person #1: I won’t insult someone that only wants to insult and not look for the truth ... You’d rather trust what others say and not your own self and for that I will block you, but I hope one day you’ll repent for your sins
• Person #2: Go kill yourself

(Actual comments posted on a video “Flat Earth theory & Evidence!?”)

Clearly there are no logic or reasoning skills being demonstrated here. Opinions are stated without qualification, and for no good reason insults traded. No attempt has been made to explain or examine anyone’s opinion, belief or idea.

Depressingly, this sort of behaviour is very common on social media; but there is another way.

In order to avoid unnecessary conflict, and simply as a matter of basic respect, we should engage thoughtfully, critically and logically with the variety of different viewpoints people hold. What might this look like? 

Well, let’s consider the following statement: “God exists because the Bible says so.” For those who believe the Bible is God’s written Word, this obviously justifies God’s existence. If the Bible says there is a God, then it must be true.

Also, they might say if there is no God then where did the Bible come from and why was it written? For them the very existence of the Bible is evidence for God’s existence.

Of course, an atheist would naturally disagree! Atheists do not believe God exists and many argue that the Bible is simply a human creation. As such the Bible cannot be used to support the claim that God exists.

Yet for all that atheists will dispute the existence of God, they cannot reject the existence of the Bible. The Bible clearly exists, but where did it come from? Why did people start writing down experiences they claimed to have had of God? If there is no God then why did people keep and preserve these writings and use them as a basis for their social and religious communities? And so the discussion begins.

Logically and reasonably we first need to establish a criteria for proving whether “God exists because the Bible says so”. For example, if a particular book actually is the Word of God and therefore evidence for God’s existence, what would such a book look like? 

What sort of writings would it contain? Would it have any errors? Could its human authors be said to have reliability communicated God’s teachings or commandments in it? Should we expect the original documents to still be around? Are we able to validate its religious truth claims on the basis of it reliably recording certain factual or historical events? And so on.

To examine the claim that the Bible is evidence for God’s existence requires us to explore and understand the assumptions being made to support or deny this, and to do this we need to ask questions and tease out the reasons people have for their different beliefs about it.

The bottom line is this: We cannot reasonably argue against some else’s point-of-view without giving them a good reason as to why we think we are right, or without giving them a good reason for why we think they are wrong!