Just saying that even immediate impulsive reactions that don't quite fit the traditional idea of revenge might be there to achieve catharsis and move on. — Coben

That makes sense. I guess I never thought of it that way.

I think if the wonderer was purely logical, then he would of never volunteered to be humiliated for the boy or even runaway from his royal life to become a wonderer. — TheHedoMinimalist

This is true

what is the inherent thing in logic that makes you distrust it? — god must be atheist

“Sometimes I feel a nagging distrust of logic”.

I don’t distrust things that make me feel good. I mean I’m wary (maybe that’s a better choice of word than distrustful) of how we are seduced by our own logic, and I should emphasise ‘our own’. Just look at the resistance to challenges on this forum. It’s easy to enjoy this stroking of our ego by the idea of our distinction through applied logic. And consequently it follows that any answer that comes about as the result of logic must be correct. One of the primary characteristics of the Enlightenment was reason. The consequences of that was science and then that science applied to utilising natural resources, the Industrial Revolution and so on, all very beneficial to mankind’s development. But look at the price, where’s the logic and reason in the consequences?

It’s all very seductive, possibly because it gives us this sense of superiority over our environment. We even spin out into space and say this logic is evident in the galaxy, as if it’s not man-made, as if it’s the stuff of the Universe. I can’t help think the negative reaction today towards Christianity is a reaction of logic towards a threat to its hegemony.

On the other hand what are we without it?

I wonder, sometimes, if logic and common sense are two distinct things. Common sense does not appear to be quite so seductive as logic. The outcomes are very tangible, they are either beneficial or they aren’t. Logic seems to want to go on analysing the problem as if talking about the problem is the actual solution. Like today we often hear the comment about a particular problem: “we need to have a conversation about this” (the problem). Do you see the seduction in all this?

I can’t help think the negative reaction today towards Christianity is a reaction of logic towards a threat to its hegemony. — Brett

This is very true. Reasonable people don't like stupidity. Christian dogma, like every religion's dogma, is so contrary to reason, logic, and common sense, that reasonable people are scratching their heads on the doggone stubbornness of the religious to stick with their dogma in this day and age.

It's hard to say whether logical, reasonable, smart people of common sense are threatened by Christianity (and by other religions) or are just vexed by it, due to religion's irritating dogma, and due to the irritating religious who won't budge from their erroneous thoughts.

At any rate, reason, logic, common sense is no weapon against the dogmatic religious. They simply ignore it.

How does your wariness of logic (and of common sense, reason, intelligence) fit into this picture?

For me? Frankly, I value intelligent people, and it follows without any effort to believe the non-religious scientific viewpoints and opinions much more readily than religious dogma for me. To me logic is not seductive, but a matter of fact, it is the only thing to decide debate with. If you appeal to emotions, in philosophical debates, you are committing the fallacy of Ad Hominem. I like all this, I think it's neat and great.

Not to misconstrue that I don't feel and live the power of emotion. It is a great source of feeling life itself; it is a thing that can make you feel happy, and also sad, along with all the other myriads of feelings, which enrich human life.

But on philosophy forums, and in intelligent debate, I only value logic.

You appear to be addressing my post but you’re really just talking to yourself. This is so much easier to do and gives you more immediate comfort. Such is the seduction of logic, because it means you are always right.

For instance it’s highly unlikely that all the Christians in the world are stupid, logic would tell you that. Christian dogma, as you call it, is not necessarily contrary to common sense, or to reason. Logic might not be able to explain belief, but that may very well be a failing of logic.

You believe logic is the only thing to decide debate with. But I can think of many events in world history where pure logic has governed and led to tragic outcomes.

Successful outcomes in the real world are decided by many things, not just logic.

Your post only confirms my feelings about the seduction of logic.

I think there needs to be a distinction between reasoning and intution, the former verbal, logical (at least ideally), the latter black boxed, the processes less clear. Most flag carriers for the Enlghtenment do not realize that intuition is used in the small spaces even in reasoning, that intuition is a necessary faculty, that one can improve intuition (many experts have refined dependable intuition) and some people are better at it. Intuition is often useful when there are so many factors and so much data one cannot break it down into the nice packets necessary for induction and deduction. There were many warning signs that technology, the products of science, are a double edged sword. But these are ignored. Corporations such as Monsanto are very quick to say that people opposing their gm products are going by emotion. This is true for many, though there is also good intentially marginalized research also. The problem with this accusation is that their drive to replace nature with products people must pay for is also driven by emotion, and further intuition and emotion are closely coupled. Something is off. Expert firefighters will feel something is off and pull their team out of a house before it goes down. Their guts feel something based on hundreds perhaps thousands of tiny clues, many they are not even consciously aware of. Corporations and scientists track a very small range of consequences, in their labs and when projecting possible negative side effects - which the latter do not want to find anyway and we do know how that affects research. What is getting poopooed as mere emotion is actually one of the two faculties we have: one is this logical reasoning and the other is intuition.

Yes, it gets tricky to decide whose intuition to follow, but pretending that it is not a faculty we have and that some have it better than others and that there are limits to what logical analysis can do, we are turning the whole planet into a hunk of garbage.

I’m glad you brought that up because intuition had somehow slipped my mind. Intuition, to me, is also
connected to common-sense, but not logic. Those things not conducive to the seduction of logic are branded as emotion. This is not to say there is anything wrong with logic, only that there are those who shut down debate with the sanctity of logic, as if it’s perfect, almost God-like.

This is not to say there is anything wrong with logic, only that there are those who shut down debate with the sanctity of logic, as if it’s perfect, almost God-like — Brett

Even logic, in application, depends on intuition. First because the premises are made up of language and language is floppy. We can't logically analyze all the assumptions in the specific semantics of our premises and conclusions. We check them, intuitively. We may take on many parts logically, but there will still be stuff we do unconsiously. Then there are process uses of intuition. I look at my premises and think I have checked enough (which is a kind of quale) to be be confident. I check the conclusion to see if somehow I am slippling in something not implied by the premises. This can be partly logical, but the checking will also be handled by intuitive 'senses' that I checked enough, that my history of checking shows I know when to stop, when I have done enough. In and around logical reasoning there is all sorts of supportive and necessary intuition used. Then there is paradigmatic intuition. All the stuff we assume is true about reality. Before qm it could have been argued that something cannot both be a particle and a wave at the same time. That would be logical. Whereas it is logical only given that certain premises in the current paradigm were incorrect. Logical arguments all come out of assumptions.