Logic

my hat would be the black bowler with the matching eye makeup.

The new mayor will be male or femaleTrue whatever the case.The new hospital will be succesful or notTrue whatever the case.

What is?

precisely. i'm sick of hearing the old 'only one can be right' argument.buddhism (which is 'merely a philosophy' when separated from the popular mixing of ancestor worship) doesn't assume that all other paths are wrong. it embraces many paths of self-denial and self-discipline which might lead to enlightenment. one can VERY easily be a buddhist and a christian, or anything else. i'm not familiar enough with any other philosophies to claim the same about them.islam accepts that christianity and judaism recognize the same god (i think i've decided we don't return the favor) but think that our methods are screwy.i don't see why pagans wouldn't accept a christian god into their pantheon. much of the old testament is quite pagan and even includes mention of national gods. (the guy who got healed and wanted to worship the god of israel so he took home assloads [literally] of israeli dirt...) so one could be a pagan and a christian if one was a henotheistic christian (there are many gods, but i only like this one) which most christians are because of their view of satan; they just don't know it. this is a little more difficult because it's even less likely to be accepted by others, but that's life.i think the only religions that are really exclusive, are the big three... you can only be one of those... you can't really be a christian and a jew. it doesn't work. (with jew here representing a religious not a cultural aspect.)

the fallacy. it's not circular, it's a tautology. you're defining your criteria by your conclusion and your conclusion by your criteria.

"one can VERY easily be a buddhist and a christian, or anything else."tautology!I can do this because I'm on topic. Seriously though, I'm hoping this doesn't become a religious-topic and get closed down, so I must appeal to the consequences of your post. Hopefully this can remain a topic about logic and learning more about it.

Isn't that begging the question?Example;"It's true because I am right"

begging the question is not proper terminology.

In response to Lam's angry young animal;Begging the question is also known as petitio principii, and is related to the fallacy known as circular argument BEgging the questionFootballers are rich. only a rich person would be a footballerSo footballer's are rich.If I refer to A = B = A, then I suppose I saw this as circular, in the sense that
you are shot back and forth to the premise, despite proving them of themselves. So Lam
was wrong I was right. Hah!

i'm saying that in order to have a logical discussion about religion, one must be correct in one's assumptions. you have to define your terms appropriately and completely and you have to operationalize them appropriately in order to have a useful argument and generalizable conclusions. if you base your logic on faulty premises, your efforts are wasted.just like:
it is raining or the sun is shining
it is not raining
so the sun must be shining.this is completely false. sure it follows fine, but the first thing i learned in the logic section of my discrete math class is that this is wasted.in florida, you can have rain and sunshine.
it might be snowing
it might simply be overcast
it might be hailingbut the assumptions are faulty and so the logic is immaterial.

oh hold on i think i'm wrong.Tautology - Wikipediai looked for the real one but i can't find it. oh well.i'm looking for
A<=>B (AiffB)
B=>A (Bimplies A)This message has been edited by brennakimi, 10-20-2005 01:24 PM

No, that's not a tautology. One common definition is that a statement is a tautology if it is true in every possible world. Since I can imagine possible worlds where there is good public health service, but nobody is in charge, your statement doesn't qualify.

Not a tautology. There are possible worlds where there are more than two sexes. Yes, that's a tautology.

There was a math text - unfortunately I have forgotten which - where

I thought BTQ referred to circular reasoning in that;A is true because of B
B is true because of ASo A is true because of B.If you cut out The second premise, you can see that you might aswell just say A is true because of B, because A is true because of B. The conclusion is the premise.So; The bible is true because God says so.
God says so because his word is the truth Therefore the bible is true because God says so.Thanks for the input. Thanks for the input also, Brennakimi/This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 10-20-2005 02:59 PM