Expert: Austin Cline - 11/13/2007

Question
dear Austin,

after reading debates between atheists and theists, I have an opinion that theists argument are always absurd, full of logical fallacy. they always make any pretext on absurdities, inconsistencies and contradictories of their "holy scripture" verse and their theology.

I want to know what happen behind their mind. Is this because their livelihood depend on the "holy scripture" or because of their difficulties in thinking.

I need some explanation from experts

thank you

Amesha

Answer
I don't think that there is any one answer that fits all situations, but I suspect that common factor is simply the ability and willingness of people to rationalize beliefs that are important to them. It isn't just religious theists who do this about their religion and theism, though. It can be found very often with political beliefs as well. This is exacerbated by the fact that most people have no education or training in the use of logic and critical thinking; even worse is the fact that the worse a person is with logic, the less likely they are to recognize that.