# Religion gets itself into trouble when it tries to be logical **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 26, 2026, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028 "2026-01-26T02:32:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2026, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/21 "2026-01-26T21:18:57Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > However, there are, apparently, sometimes attempts at using internal logic among some Christians about some issues. I’m not sure exactly how it works, having declined to participate in such discussions\*, but my born-again sister takes great pride in her study of her religion, and her ability to think her way through various, I don’t know, puzzles or conundrums or questions, not about the basics, but about different parts meshing with other parts. Having spent several years in Fundamentalist and Evangelical churches and groups when I was younger, I suspect that, to paraphrase Giorgio Tsoukalos, the takeaway from those analyses is consistently: [![](https://i.imgflip.com/aifiea.jpg) ](https://i.imgflip.com/aifiea.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2026, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/22 "2026-01-26T21:22:05Z")
I’m okay with religion not being logical as long as it stays in its own lane. Logic is not the only important thing about being human. But the minute you start trying to attack science that doesn’t comport with your beliefs, I’m out. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2026, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/23 "2026-01-26T21:27:39Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Seems like a no true Scotsman argument. If you admit you are not a Scotsman while living in, say, Spain, then you _aren’t_ a Scotsman. Believing in a religion is what _makes_ someone religious, not going through the motions. Celebrating Christmas to enjoy being with my family despite not believing in God didn’t make _me_ religious. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2026, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/24 "2026-01-26T21:31:49Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Believing in a religion is what _makes_ someone religious, not going through the motions. It’s my impression that this depends on the religion, and that some religions consider being an adherent of that religion to be more a matter of practicing the right practices than of believing the right beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2026, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/25 "2026-01-26T21:32:40Z")
And yet your employer will still be in hot water if he denies you the day off. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/26 "2026-01-27T02:14:17Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > As an atheist surrounded by believers (like most of us are) I’ve found that if you find one who will debate honestly and really pin them down they will admit they did not come to believe through logical reasoning or using the empirical method, but choose to believe because they LIKE the way it makes them feel, it gets them through the day, it helps them sleep at night. Are you saying that you have actually met _any_ religious people who do insist that their beliefs are entirely based on empirical evidence and logical reasoning? > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It’s my impression that this depends on the religion, and that some religions consider being an adherent of that religion to be more a matter of practicing the right practices than of believing the right beliefs. Yes, that’s certainly true of Judaism and, I believe, of Buddhism. Another logical difficulty of Der Trihs’ definition is that it makes it impossible to know for sure whether anyone else is “really” religious or not. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/27 "2026-01-27T04:01:51Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Are you saying that you have actually met _any_ religious people who do insist that their beliefs are entirely based on empirical evidence and logical reasoning? I think there are some who _think_ it is logical, having not been exposed to, or refused to listen to, the logical refutations of various arguments about the origin of the universe. Or everything is based on what they “just know” to be true, without being bothered about asking how they know. God apparently talks to my sister in her head, according to her. How can she ignore or go against that? And how can anyone else know that it isn’t true? QED. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/28 "2026-01-27T07:50:12Z")
As Thomas Aquinas put it\*, “for those who believe, no proof is necessary; for those who disbelieve, no amount of proof is sufficient”. This might be read as a slam on either the gullible believer or the stubborn skeptic, but I don’t think it’s either. Rather, it just points to the notion that knowledge of the divine, if it is attainable at all, is a different epistemic modality than that of evidence and proof. There are some who’ll immediately balk at this notion, but just think of having a headache: you don’t need to go around collecting evidence that you have a headache, you don’t need to conclude that fact from any prior principles, you know you have a headache from, well, having a headache (and even a Sellarsian critique of the myth of the given can be consistent with this). So there are things you can know without having arrived at this knowledge via evidential/logical means. Moreover, it would be entirely fruitless to try to convince somebody else of these things by logical argument. Sure, they can, and typically will, believe your reports of having a headache, but what could you do to prove it to them if they’re determined to be skeptical? They can’t feel your headache, so there will always be a ‘leap of faith’ into believing you about having one. Indeed, to somebody who’s never experienced it, how could you describe what a headache is? So I think if there is any sensible concept of knowledge of the divine, it has to be along some such lines—not necessarily by the same epistemic modality that grants you knowledge of your headaches, but perhaps by yet another one (if there’s two, why shouldn’t there be more?). And if that’s the case, then indeed trying to transmit such knowledge via logical argument is as fruitless as trying to transmit knowledge of a headache via the same route. So what can one do in the face of this possibility? Well, I think the most one can say is: if there is such knowledge, I don’t have it, so I have no reason to believe. No proof would convince me otherwise, because the notion of proof itself undermines the epistemic preconditions of any possibility of belief. So yeah, religion does get itself into trouble when it tries to logify itself. * * * \*At least I thought it was him, but googling around sees it attributed to different people, Ignatius of Loyola and others. So probably a misattribution. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/29 "2026-01-27T07:58:54Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Are you saying that you have actually met _any_ religious people who do insist that their beliefs are entirely based on empirical evidence and logical reasoning? Yes, my YouTube feed is loaded with them. Christian philbros, YECs, presuppositionalists, Christian apologetics has been based on “empirical evidence” and “logical reasoning” since forever. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/30 "2026-01-27T08:30:09Z")
Faith by definition is belief without proof. Not only does it not need proof, does not want proof, it disdains it. Doubt is anathema to it yet doubt is core to logic and science, is utterly and vitally necessary to our incrementally improving understanding of the universe. Quite aside from the utter absurdity of all religions’ beliefs is the rigidity, is the uninterest - indeed hostility - in any advance in factual understanding. We already know everything we need to about how everything works, any further investigation is only liable to undermine our faith - so why do it. It must be because you are the devil’s spawn! The god of the gaps is a rapidly diminishing entity. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/31 "2026-01-27T12:17:46Z")
> [@Ancient\_Nerd](#): > > A religious leader sees himself as working for God. That means that someone who disagrees with him must be working for Satan. Someone working for Satan is better off dead. The two sides accuse each other and off we go. It’s not just believers versus non-believers. Within a religion different sects can attack each other. For example. Christianity has a long history of Protestants and Catholics murdering each other. Even today: [Peace lines - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines) The stated purpose of the peace lines is to minimise inter-communal violence between Catholics … and Protestants ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/32 "2026-01-27T13:21:14Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Seems like a no true Scotsman argument. There are a great many people who readily acknowledge that no entity resembling the Biblical God actually exists, but who still spend a great deal of time in religious activities. Yes, and this is something the Bible itself points to quite clearly. There’s a built-in distinction between _how people label themselves_ and _how they are known_. Jesus speaks of those who call themselves believers, even performing religious acts, yet are told, “I do not know you.” At the same time, Scripture allows for the possibility that some who fall outside our religious categories may nevertheless be known by Him. By modern logical standards, that looks like a “no true Scotsman” move, but biblically it functions as a feature, not a bug. Faith is not validated by self-identification or affiliation, but by something deeper. That fits the larger point about logic and faith. When faith is reduced to labels (and binaries) it inevitably produces conflict. But when we consider the orientation of the heart, the distinction makes sense without becoming arbitrary. It explains how people can look religious and yet miss the point, and how others may not wear the label yet live closer to it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/33 "2026-01-27T13:50:46Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > The god of the gaps is a rapidly diminishing entity. Thank god for that! 😁 More seriously, I like your whole post a lot. I agree w your punchline that the _need_ for god of gaps for the inherent non-believers is rapidly diminishing towards zero. We’re certainly far past needing a thunder god and a rain god to explain the weather. Even if the details of the origin of life and the universe are still kinda fuzzy to Earth science, those concerns are very remote to daily living. BUT (and it’s a biggee) … The supply of people who have the functional defect of “spirituality” seems eternally fixed at about 80% of the population. Those people are ready-made victims of whatever charlatan comes along to sell them access to the non-existent “divine”. They might be a majority, but they certainly aren’t right. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/34 "2026-01-27T17:13:57Z")
I suspect it’s lower than 80%. Even in the United States. Don’t underestimate the number of people who claim to have a belief in order to fit into their community. I suspect that number fluctuates a lot, too. There are certain environmental and societal conditions that facilitate belief and certain that harm it. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/35 "2026-01-27T17:21:57Z")
Yeah, I’m not sure why I wrote that, I know there are countless stupid people in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2026, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/36 "2026-01-27T17:28:14Z")
No, you (and Der Trihs) are just talking about hypocrisy; people purporting to believe in things they actually don’t. I’m talking about religions like Reconstructionist Judaism or liberal strains of Christianity, which openly acknowledge that their Scriptures aren’t literally true. Yet many people are deeply committed to these faiths and make them central to their lives; are they not “really” religious? A fundamentalist might argue that they aren’t “really” Jews or Christians, but I don’t see how you could say they aren’t _religious._ ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2026, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/37 "2026-01-28T13:44:43Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > No, you (and Der Trihs) are just talking about hypocrisy; people purporting to believe in things they actually don’t. I’m not talking about that kind of hypocrisy, though it certainly exists. I agree with you that people sometimes claim beliefs they don’t actually hold, but that’s a separate issue and not the one I’m addressing here. What I’m talking about is people who genuinely believe in God but are not yet transformed. They are often holding onto frameworks they were taught and trying to make sense of faith primarily through logical understanding (typically rule based). That can produce real moral conflicts, for example: God says X, but X seems to cause harm or pain to others. The resolution is often framed as, “My responsibility is obedience; God will justify the outcome or reveal the reason for the pain later.” Living inside those unresolved moral conflicts while still maintaining belief in God is, in my view, part of the journey of faith. So: - Do they believe in God? **Yes.** - Do they believe they are serving God? **Yes.** In that sense, they are not being hypocritical. They may be incomplete, still forming, or limited in understanding, but not insincere or dishonest about what they believe. ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2026, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/38 "2026-01-28T15:23:58Z")
Even apologists who make a living arguing for the existence of God like William Lane Craig have stated that most believers are very bad at making proper and coherent arguments for their beliefs. Most religious people would just cite faith or having been raised that way (which is a matter of practicality, not ideology) as to why they believe in God. You could probably make the same claim regarding believers in political ideologies. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2026, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/39 "2026-01-28T16:26:21Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > What I’m talking about is people who genuinely believe in God but are not yet transformed. They are often holding onto frameworks they were taught and trying to make sense of faith primarily through logical understanding (typically rule based). That can produce real moral conflicts, for example: God says X, but X seems to cause harm or pain to others. The resolution is often framed as, “My responsibility is obedience; God will justify the outcome or reveal the reason for the pain later.” I dunno. I’m pretty religious and, although I find the phrase quite cringey, I feel I’ve been “transformed” by religion. But I don’t see myself in this at all. In order to have a moral conflict between your own beliefs and what “God says”, you have to believe you actually _know_ what God says. If you accept that it’s all myth and allegory, that conflict never arises. Take homosexuality; the Torah clearly and explicitly forbids it and in fact makes it punishable by death. But there’s clearly nothing wrong with homosexuality, so the Torah is simply wrong about that. No big moral conflict there. You can still regard your Scriptures and the moral and ethical system derived from them as holding immense spiritual value and to be worthy of study and obedience, without having to back into the corner of insisting that it’s _all_ true. That binary thinking of “it’s either completely true, or it’s completely worthless” is IMO a great example of religion getting itself in trouble by trying to be logical. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2026, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028/40 "2026-01-28T16:54:22Z")
Statements like “Religion gets itself into trouble when it tries to be logical” are too general to be useful. Replace “religion” with “government” or “sports” or “art” for comparison. Typical the author has in their mind some particular instance and it would be better to discuss that. * * * My religion focuses on stuff like > ‘For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ > Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not give you whatever you needed?’ > Then he will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.’ I don’t use evidence to justify helping the hungry or the thirsty or the stranger or the unclothed or the sick or the imprisoned. But evidence is useful to figure who needs help. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-gets-itself-into-trouble-when-it-tries-to-be-logical/1027028.md?page=3)