Crimes Against Logic by Jamie Whyte

Author:Jamie Whyte [Whyte, Jamie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Critical Thinking, Non-fiction, Logic
ISBN: 0-07-144643-5
Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Evil exists,

and

An all-good and all-powerful god exists.

Their inconsistency is not immediately obvious, but inconsistent they are. An all-good god would want to avoid any evil he could and an all-powerful god would be able to avoid any evil he wanted. Hence, if there were an all-good and all-powerful god, there would be no evil. So the existence of such a god is inconsistent with the fact that there is evil. (By “evil” I mean nothing metaphysical: toothache, trailer park-destroying tornadoes, or torture will do.)

Nevertheless, most Christians, Jews, and Muslims believe in both. They have either failed to draw out the implications of their belief in an all-good and all-powerful god, or they have been convinced by one of the many bogus theological attempts to show this belief consistent with the existence of evil.[7.2]

In this respect, there is nothing special about the religious. We all hold inconsistent beliefs because we have failed to draw out all the implications of some of our beliefs and so failed to see that they are inconsistent with others we hold.

Recognizing all the logical consequences of everything we believe is beyond the intellectual capacity, and the will, of us humans. An extraordinary number of mathematical truths can be derived from just a few basic axioms easily understood by us all. Yet most of us are incapable of making the derivation. And even those mathematicians up to this task will surely fail elsewhere: in the various nooks and crannies of their minds will lurk beliefs inconsistent with one another.

To demand perfect consistency would be futile. But the impossibility of perfection doesn’t mean we should have no expectations whatsoever. Most of the inconsistency that pollutes popular debate would take the merest effort to identify and eliminate. For example, the inconsistency in the common pair of beliefs—the government should cut taxes and the government should spend more—isn’t very hard to identify.[7.3] It is surely not too much to ask of a voter.

Especially once the inconsistency has been noticed. This chapter aims to help by identifying two contexts in which inconsistency often goes unnoticed. There is more inconsistency about than fits into these categories, but the rest follows no pattern I can discern.

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