Can an Atheist be a logician

I am a Christian. I recently found your website and enjoy it immensely. It is great to browse the fallacies and get clarification for school assignments (I am currently in Grade 9 and homeschooled). I love your examples and how you succeed at 'bashing' all different kinds of people in a very humorous fashion.

I have one great question though. And it is this: As an atheist how can you possibly believe in the existence of logic? In your belief system, we have evolved to exist as we currently exist. That means life has no meaning other than to carry on the species, and the like. We have no deeper purpose. So what is the foundational rule for logic? By your reasoning I am an animal, and you are too. We are the product of billions of years of time and chance. Where do the laws of logic come from? How are we even rational? How can you tell me i have bad logic or the other way around if there is no meaning in our life or foundational laws that govern it? What is truth even? I have never met someone so intelligent in the realm of logic as you and yet i fail to understand how you can reconcile this with your atheistic principles.

Again, I am only looking for answers here. I deeply respect what you're doing and am thankful for this awesome resource.

Hi Samuel,

First of all, I commend you for reaching out to get your questions answered by atheists. The mere fact that you are doing this speaks volumes of your intelligence, especially as a 9th grader (very impressed).

I am an atheist, but please understand that I don't speak for all atheists. An atheist means only thing... that we don't believe in any gods—there is nothing in atheism that answers questions about logic, morality, truth, or anything else... besides the belief in gods. Therefore, I, like all other atheists, turn to philosophy. As you are probably well aware, atheist philosophers have existed since recorded history. I only share this information because many on this list are more eloquent than I and more knowledgeable in this specific area. But now my answer.

I actually wrote an essay answering this question (a version of it) in detail. The short version is that logic is a property of the universe. You might say it is a property of God. The difference is, we both know that the universe exists... not need to postulate a "being" which is extra baggage that carries with it a host of other problems and even more unanswered questions.

You might be confusing an atheist with a philosophical materialist , or someone who believes only the material world. I am not the latter, and I don't know of many atheists who are. This is important because logic, reason, morality, purpose, love, and all those things that are important to all of us can be shared by all of us, despite claims of their origins. As a Christian, you might claim "God did it" (or they all come from God) and I would say that these things are either properties of the universe (as in the case of logic) or human-constructed ideas (as in the case of morality, purpose, and love).

As for purpose, you believe that you were given a purpose, the atheist believes that we create our purpose. No magic required.

Rationality and reason don't require a god or belief in one. From an evolutionary perspective, rationality and reason are mental traits that exist today because they have given our ancestors a survival and/or reproductive advantage. If my ancestor could use reason to predict the behavior of his enemies, it would give him an advantage. However, too rational/reasonable is a disadvantage... which explains many biases such as self-serving biases as well as beliefs that are untrue.

Hope this helps. Please do read my article linked above. That will help. Others might chime in here too.

I'm sure a better response will be along shortly (or have beaten me by 2 minutes while I wrote), but in the meantime if I may throw my hat in the ring....

I don't know if you're under the impression that a law requires a law maker, but this is an argument I often see from theists. Whilst we have laws within the legal system that are devised by people, that is a different kind of law to a law in science which is a statement of fact based on repeated experimental observation. You need to be careful not to use different meanings of a word to draw conclusions as this can lead to a logical fallacy called equivocation e.g. feathers are light (weight), therefore feathers aren't dark, or in this case X is s law, therefore X requires a law giver.

Also logic deals with reasoning based on principles of validity. Was there some reason that you believe there needs to be a god for things to be valid, or rational? If I say "I don't know" it would be an argument from ignorance to respond "then it must be god", you can only conclude that by demonstrating a reason to conclude that, not the failure to provide an alternative. Also if you were to point out how "it just makes sense" you have an argument from incredulity.

"How can you tell me i have bad logic or the other way around if there is no meaning in our life or foundational laws that govern it?"
I would assess your logic on merit. By what standard are you assigning arbitrary conditions to logic?

Also atheism is about a lack of belief in a god or gods, while atheists may share other beliefs it's not correct to assume any e.g. where you say no meaning to life, that's not necessarily a view atheists have.

My friend I too am a Christian who thoroughly enjoys this site. (Sometimes I just lurk and don't sign in) Dr. Bennet's answer is an example of why I enjoy this site so much. I hope you stick around my friend, it's worth doing so.

I am also impressed that you are such a deep thinker at an age of 14 or 15.

Your question is, I think, “If there is no god, then where did logic come from”. Christians and atheists have different presuppositions. Most Christians believe that everything comes from god. For instance, most Christians believe that without god there would be no morality. Atheists have an explanation for this. Being good to your fellow man has survival value. You are good to others and this helps you and your community survive. So people are good to each other because this helps them survive and not because god arbitrarily made it so.

Asking why we have logic is like asking why we reason at all. Atheists believe that we evolved the ability to reason. We have complex brain which evolved from a need to adapt, survive, and thrive in a social environment. Logic, reason, justice, philosophy, etc, emerged from our complex brains. No God required.

Okay, let's see if we can peel some of this back and find a way to the center of reason. If for nothing else just as a logical exercise.

You begin by stating unequivocally "I am a Christian."

Okay, fine, but what exactly does that mean? Because of your age and other telltale signs of inquiry we might assume a great many things. But those assumptions are just that, assumptions, and assuming things sets us off of on a whole slippery slope of speculation. We need more information. There are three main branches of early Christianity: Jewish, Pauline, and Gnostic. Which tradition are you? Why is it necessary to declare you are a Christian in the first place.? What exactly does being a Christian mean? Does being a Christian excuse you from the confines of logic, reason, science and The Laws of Physics?

If you believe this to be true, in logical terms you're asserting the fallacy of Special Pleading. See Dr. Bo's explanation. By declaring your Christianity you are holding yourself subject to a whole other set of principles than the rest of us do but with scant evidence to support it. That would be the first glitch in your line of inquiry. As the late great Christopher Hitchens wrote: Anything that can be introduced without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Christianity has many different denominations but if we are to accept the main credo it is the belief that a supernatural being created the universe and when he became displeased it elected to wipe it out and start a new time and time again over 6,000 years (if we adhere to the Judeo Christian canon). As a Christian, you propose that this same Supreme Creator traveled across the infinite (13.7 billion-year-old universe) and incarnated on Earth as his own SON and subjected himself to a human sacrifice to save his creation from a 6,000-year-old blood curse he levied on his own people. Obviously, to most logicians, this is a highly implausible, improbable, and, well, illogical. For one we know blood magic doesn't work. It doesn't work for Satanists, Haitians Vodou practitioners, nor does it work for Christians. Science has proven this belief to be false. But by proclaiming you are a Christian you're saying that the Laws of Physics, Quantum Field Theory and The Standard Model of Particles don't apply to you.

Looking at it subjectively we might be able to see that what you are proposing is the stuff of fantasy, magic, and superstition but not real. It's like looking for a food recipe in an auto mechanic's manual. Another example might be standing in your backyard and believing that what you see to be all there is, or because the world looks flat then it is flat. Or, looking up at the night sky it's easy to believe that you are standing at the center of the universe, but through science, logic, reason, and knowledge you begin to learn that to get a truer picture you need to have better tools than just belief and religion. The great Joseph Campbell wrote: There is no conflict between science and religion there is only a conflict between the science of the 6th Century B.C. and the science of the 21st century A.D. Logic is just one of a number of those tools that have proven to be more accurate than belief.

There's another saying that goes: science flies rockets to the moon, religion flies airplanes into buildings. It might be rather harsh, but you can see the difference between logic and belief in one pithy observation.

I will not get into the question of fallacies, as all that is important has been said here already. But just what I stated before: it usually goes wrong when one tries to seek justification for personal religious believes in logic. Great minds have failed in trying so. It is probably best to just consider them to be both unjustifiable and unrefutable and matters that can never be conclusively concluded.

Think of it this way: if we found a conclusive logical proof that god does not exist, would you change your believes? Probably not.

If the opposite was true: would any of the atheists change their point of view? I much doubt that either.

The good thing is that there are neither of these - so we can be sure that the arguing about it never has to cease. And as long as this is done with respect for each other and by arguing on the matter and not attacking the person, it is an argument by which everybody can win.

Before you ask: I'm not an atheist, I'm an agnostic: I don't know and I don't care ;-)