RESOLVED: Religious belief can be rational

How exciting! I’ll get right into it; I don’t find izbo’s rebuttals sufficient and he has offered no counter arguments in favour of Con. In summary, izbo10 has simply dismissed all my hypothetical theists on the basis of fallacy. So, let us first look at what a fallacy actually is, since my opponent has offered no broad definition. Fallacy: In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is usually incorrect argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption. Now, let me explain why the three examples I gave are not fallacious.1) The Isolated Muslim – “He presents a Muslim who believes based on the appeal to majority fallacy. ”My opponent has suggested this is an example of “Argumentum ad populum”. I’m afraid I disagree. There is no fallacy here because the Muslim in my example is not engaged in any argument. An example of an appeal to majority would be “Most of the people in the world believe in God, therefore there is a God because how could everyone be wrong? ”Clearly, the boy in my example is not in a discussion nor a debate nor anything resembling an argument regarding his religion. Everyone in the area believes. I maintain that, given his upbringing and culture it is completely rational for him to believe a God exists. There is no fallacy here. IF, he were to log into DDO and post “Everyone in my village believes in Allah, therefore Allah exists” that would be a fallacy. Again, I must stress the point. I am not saying that the hypothetical boy is correct, far from it. I’m just saying that from his subjective point of view, his belief is completely rational. He doesn’t believe based on a fallacy; he believes because he was indoctrinated into the religion from birth.2) The Divine-curious Scholar. “His second example starts with a agnostic falling for the argument from ignorance fallacy. ”This is my favourite bit, where my opponent actually proved this hypothetical for me. I really appreciate it…“the majority of scholars think a historical Jesus was born in Nazareth, preached the Jewish law, failed to perform miracles in front of the Pharasees of Nazareth, and died on the cross end of historical story. ”So, what you’re saying is… the majority of scholars agree that Jesus did in fact, exist. My opponent also ignored where I said:“He studies the various philosophical arguments and finds them sound. He studies the Bible and takes original language, the historical context and relevance of certain metaphors and finds personal philosophical meaning. ”Unfortunately, the whole rebuttal is again, moot anyway. There is no fallacy here. My scholar isn’t arguing “We don’t know, therefore God exists” with anyone. I maintain that if one has the personal opinion that “We don’t know; I find some arguments for God convincing and my religious beliefs don’t contradict scientific fact. I believe God exists” then they are completely rational. The fact I am an Atheist has nothing to do with it.3) The Fulfilled Buddhist - “Is the appeal to consequences fallacy, the man finds Buddhism works for him so he believes it. This is not using good sound judgement or any of the 3 attributes attributed to rational. ”No. The Appeal to Consequences fallacy would be “If you practise Buddhism, your life will be fulfilling, therefore Buddhism is correct”. That is as far from what I actually described as is possible. The man practises Buddhism (let’s say Atheistic Zen Buddhism) and finds it fulfilling. He doesn’t necessarily believe in anything and he’s certainly not making assertions about truth. I maintain however, that his practising of Buddhism is completely rational. REBUTTAL OF CONCLUSION“In order for religious belief to be rational it must be logical. Rational is a way of saying a person is using logic. All three of his examples showed a person not using sound judgment but instead jumping to conclusions about truth value on faulty reasoning and logic. Sorry my opponent has completely and utterly failed. ”I find your preachy attitude regarding the exercising of logic quite amusing, given the line of argument you’ve made. What is this objective logic you seem to be referencing? Logic is a learnt skill. The Isolated Muslim can’t spontaneously learn the flaws we see in his belief. He is exercising the best logic and reasoning skills available to him. That is why I believe, despite not agreeing with him, that his belief is rational. The Divine-curious Scholar has examined the evidence and come to a different conclusion than you. Are you honestly arguing that, simply because he disagrees with YOU, that he is irrational? Finally, the Fulfilled Buddhist practises his religion and finds it highly fulfilling. He doesn’t believe in any kind of God, yet you find him irrational… I simply don’t understand. CONCLUSIONThere is a very, very good reason why I was so happy my opponent played the fallacy card. And it is this:Argumentum ad logicam: Otherwise known as the argument from fallacy, the argumentum ad logicam is the formal fallacy of analysing an argument and inferring that, since it contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false. Even if there is a fallacy (which I maintain there isn't) it doesn't automatically mean my conclusion is false. Also, my opponent called everyone who read this debate an idiot, which wasn’t very nice.