Re: Question for religious parents

dragonlady wrote:
In article <1141319832.288957.169400@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"cjorp@xxxxxxxxx" <cjorp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

dragonlady wrote:
In article <1141283734.566966.39970@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"cjorp@xxxxxxxxx" <cjorp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Saying that just because you think that a proposition is true doesn't
mean that you think the people who think a proposition is false are
wrong is the same as "endorsing a contradiction."

And in your mind, would that be wrong?

Um, yeah. *laughs*. I heartily endorse the principle of
non-contradiction. If you want to take a closer look at the truth
tables at that Wikipedia link you can see that embracing a
contradiction leads to being able to prove that *any* proposition is
both true *and* false in first-order predicate calculus, in which case
we can't actually prove anything, or claim anything about the world.
We can only make vaguely expressive comments.

This isn't math, though.

Okay, replace the word "calculus" with "logic." In logic, you
manipulate propositions instead of variables according to logical laws,
hence the term "propositional logic." "Calculus" just means "formal
system."

If I see two contradictory positions, I can embrace both while looking
for whatever Truth may come from their eventual resolution -- but, in
the meantime, I don't have to reject either one of them.

You can think that they've got actual truth values while not holding
either belief to be either true or false -- agnosticism, as opposed to
non-cognitivism, since you think they're the sorts of propositions that
can be said to *have* truth values -- but you can't think they're both
true without contradiction.

Critical thinkers respond to contradiction by saying, hey, there's
something really wrong here -- I must have made an error by assuming a
premise or something. They don't say, oh, look, how non-judgemental
and Zen I'm being! I'd say that's jettisoning truth in the name of
tolerance. Furthermore, it doesn't buy you tolerance.

Actually, I think of it more as embracing paradox.

A contradiction is not a paradox. A paradox is a proposition like,
"This sentence is false."

Well, then, we'll have to disagree.

Once again, Wikipedia:

"A paradox is an apparently true statement or group of statements that
seems to lead to a contradiction or to a situation that defies
intuition. Typically, either the statements in question do not really
imply the contradiction, the puzzling result is not really a
contradiction, or the premises themselves are not all really true or
cannot all be true together. The recognition of ambiguities,
equivocations, and unstated assumptions underlying known paradoxes has
led to significant advances in science, philosophy and mathematics.

"The word paradox is often used interchangeably and wrongly with
contradiction..."

<snip>

And, to repeat myself -- I am NOT talking about Jettisoning Truth, nor
have I any desire to be "tolerant" (I hate that word, frankly.) I will
gladly tell you if I think what you believe is clearly false. I will
also tell you if I think what you believe is dangerous -- a different
kind of false: a functional view of belief systems, perhaps. And I
will tell you what *I* believe -- but without insisting that that means
you have to be wrong about what *you* believe if you don't agree with me.

*By* *definition*, if you think P, you can't think Not-P is also true
without giving up all critical thinking. So I suspect this is not
actually what you mean to claim.

That doesn't mean I engage in sloppy thinking.

Please stop using "non-judgemental", at least with regard to MY
approach. I am not, nor do I desire to be, non-judgemental. I am
perfectly willing to judge, to discriminate, and to name specific things
as not-true (not possible, dangerous, unworthy -- take your pick). I am
not tolerant of specific beliefs that, imho, harm people or the world.

Non-judgemental means you're not deciding that one of the propositions
is True, and the other is False. Once again, it's not a pejorative
term.

--
C, mama to three year old nursling

.

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