Can logic be a religion?

Started by pkamm, 01/16/2003 04:06PM
Posted 01/16/2003 04:06PM Opening Post
I want logic to be a religion. That would be cool. But it will never take. It lacks the two strongest motivators that make the big established religions (and also elections) successful. Those motivators are:

1) Promises (salvation)
2) Threats (damnation)

The thing that keeps poking at me about the established theistic religions of today is that, on the face of it, they strike me as illogical.

For example:

In Christianity, you are promised salvation if you accept Christ as Savior. You are promised damnation if you don't.

In Islam you are promised salvation if you accept Mohammed as the Last Prophet and Allah as the one true God. Jesus is considered a great prophet, but you are damned if you call him "God" for then you are guilty of the deification of human beings.

Either one or both of these beliefs must be wrong. It is possible that one of them is right, but not both. Which one you believe, in nearly all cases, depends upon which culture you are raised in. Upon being presented with the competing belief later in life, the 'other' will sound foreign and downright blasphemous to you. Conversions are very few.

So whether you are saved or damned depends, in 99% or so of cases, upon where you are born. This strikes me as exceedingly illogical.