|
|
|
|
|
|
This website is being renovated throughout 2008.
Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and
there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please
do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page)
without contacting the webmaster first.
Examine your evidence carefully before deciding that one event or
phenomenon is the cause of another.
Let us say that men who are depressed work long hours.
What is the connexion between these two facts?
a. Do they work long hours because they are depressed and want to escape
their depression? Or they are depressed because they work long hours?
If either one of these analyses is correct - depression leads to working long hours
or working long hours leads to depression - they are linked by cause
and effect.
b. Neither analysis is correct and a third factor is responsible:
genes, upbringing, an unhappy marriage or something else leads men to be both depressed and to work hard. In that case, there is a correlation between work hours and depression.
c. There is no connexion at all. Further research shows that some men who are
depressed work long hours, others work normal hours and a third group does not work at all.
Meanwhile, many men who work long hours are very happy because their job gives them
fulfilment. In this case there is neither cause nor correlation between long
working hours and depression.
Whenever we come across facts that appear to be related we have a tendency to link them together. This is not surprising. Our survival thousands of years ago depended on our ability to make connexions. We know that lions roar and hungry lions may attack us. A roar in the forest could be caused by a lion hunting us. It makes more sense to run than to assume no connexion.
But cause and effect are not always straightforward. Does it rain to make the grass grow, or does the grass grow because it rains?
How about this? The doctors said my aunt was dying and I prayed to Jesus to make her well. Jesus caused her to become well again. Or was it the drugs that saved her? Or was it that her body was stronger than we suspected and it recovered on her own?
|
|
|
How good is your reasoning?
Can you distinguish lies from truth? Or a good
argument from a false one? Can you when tell someone is trying to pull
the wool over your eyes?
We keep physically fit by exercising regularly and eating healthy
|
|
|
|
food. The same is true of our minds - we need regular mental exercise and a good diet of
solid facts and logic.
This chapter offers basic reasoning skills to help you understand the contradictions
that lie at the heart of all religion.
0.1: Basic principles
Start at the beginning
0.2: What do we know?
Separate fact from fiction
0.3: Start with the question ...
... not with the answer
0.4: All the evidence ...
... not just some of it
0.5: Cause and correlation
They're not the same
0.6: Don't jump to conclusions ...
... or you could land in the ...
0.7: No way
Proving a negative
0.8: Occam's Razor
The simplest solution
0.9: Facts, knowledge and science
What we know and how we know it
0.10: Reason and faith
Understanding the difference
0.11: Summary
Finished the introduction? Move on to
Chapter 1
Defining God
Does God exist? Before we try to answer that question we
need to have a clear idea of who or what God is. How do we
describe God? What versions of God are on offer?
Not sure what you're looking for?
If there's a word that you don't recognize, it might be defined
here.
If there's a topic you're looking for, check one of the Search
boxes on this page.
If there's something you want to ask, send an
e-mail. We can't guarantee an answer,
but we'll do our best.
|
|
|
And what about the Big Question: must everything have a cause? If I only exist because my parents
mated and they only exist because their parents did the same; and if the human race only existed
because it evolved from other primates and they evolved over billennia from single-celled organisms and
if these organisms were the result of the conditions on a primeval earth that came into being as an
eventual result of the Big Bang, what caused that Big Bang? God? And if God was the cause of the Big Bang,
what was the cause of God? (To take that argument further, read here.)
Be careful of cause and effect and of correlation and be prepared to accept that in
some circumstances there may no connexion between phenomena at all. Always test your
hypotheses and look at alternative possibilities before coming to a conclusion -
particularly the conclusion that God is the cause of all...
Next:
Introduction: Section 6
Don't jump to conclusions ...
Do you have a question / comment about this page?
Email us, pasting the URL into your letter with the comment
This account is protected by Spamarrest.
You will receive a
one-off request to verify your email before it is delivered.
|
|
|
If God existed, he would...
admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create
recognize that eternity is meaningless
deny both heaven and hell
disown all men and women who speak in his name
denounce the harm caused by religious "morality"
help the human race to thrive without him
If God existed, he would be an atheist.
|
|
|
