Over the past few months and weeks, I have come across many different place where I am being challenged in my faith. People asking me why I believe in God. Is there really a God? It came to a bit of a head a few days ago when I was reading the comments on an atheist blog attacking C.S. Lewis for a single statement he made.
What depressed me when reading that, was not the points brought forward, but rather the way in which the author argued her points. Sure, there is space for discussion on whether or not there is a God, but if you are going to debate, please apply logic. Perhaps my perception of logic is slightly skewed, by being a Computer Scientist, and I like cold hard irrefutable facts, but arguments should be full, and refute all points made.
I have seen lots of bad arguments, both for and against Christianity, but seriously, they don't seem to hold water either way. The only way to prove something is to begin with an irrefutable fact. Something that everyone agrees is fundamental to life, the universe and everything. A statement of fact that will be accepted by the strongest naturalist, the most unbelieving atheist, and also the strongest, most evangelical Christian.
The argument must then build on this fact. finding possible reasons for it, and developing them until a contradiction is reached, or the are definitely still right. The proof by contradiction, is possibly one of the simplest forms of mathematical proof to understand. It is fundamentally easy to understand when you form a contradiction, so we can take our fact, and list a few possible reasons for it. We can then extrapolate from there until we reach a decision. Either what we are postulating is valid, or we will reach a contradiction, an have to return to our last correct point.
This process can be used all the way upwards until we reach an agreement, and a decision is made. I will not say now, that the decision will be either one way or the other, because then I would have to fully flesh out the argument, and that is a post in its own right. Instead I will say, if you want to argue, at least argue in a logically sound manner.
That is the offence side of the story. If you want to correctly defend your stand point, the laws of logic should still hold. You should still not argue with logical fallacies. And should argue against every point raised. It is no use when debating a point to allow emotions to cloud your judgement. Arguments should be clear and concise, and not attack the character of the person against whom you are arguing.
It is not useful to hurt the person you are arguing with, or to ignore points they put forward. It does not help to slander people in any way, unless you do not actually want your arguments to be taken seriously.
Well said.
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