Logic Is Not Magic

"There are some apologists who want us to believe that logic is magic. What is a materialist atheist? It's someone who believes that everything in the universe is made of matter molecules and nothing outside of that can exist. See, this is why I prefer the term physicalist rather than materialist. I don't think even most people who call themselves materialists believe that energy and space-time don't exist. I don't believe that any anything non-physical exists, but there are plenty of things that are immaterial that are still physical. That means a Transcendent God cannot exist because God is a spirit but if that's the case how can we explain immaterial realities like laws of logic? 

"The laws of logic describe the boundaries of what our physical brains can do. They describe physical phenomena. I believe in the law of non-contradiction, for example, because if I try to imagine something both existing and not existing at the same time and in the same respect I find that I can't. that's a limitation of my physical brain. There's nothing non-physical about it."

Click on the link below for a video attempting to correct a religious apologist regarding logic:

Why Logic Isn't Magic 

Another Logical Syllogism Attempt Defending A God Debunked

Humanity has discovered and developed logical syllogisms as part of deductive proofs of reality. The results are certainly valid IF (and, it is a big one) ALL of the premises are true. All logical syllogisms I have seen in support of a God have at least one premise that is false or unsupported by evidence. Below is just one more attempt to support Christianity through this apologetic, and my comments in red debunking the appropriate statements:

Posted on September 29, 2010 by John Oakes wrote in Philosophy, The Existence of God, Theology.

A twelve-point outline of logical arguments for the existence of God.

Math And Logic Are Formal Sciences

Let's put Mathematics and Logic in proper relationship to Science:

"Formal science is a branch of science studying formal language disciplines concerned with formal systems, such as logic, mathematics, statistics, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, information theory, game theory, systems theory, decision theory, and theoretical linguistics.^[1] Whereas the natural sciences and social sciences seek to characterize physical systems and social systems, respectively, using empirical methods, the formal sciences are language tools concerned with characterizing abstract structures described by symbolic systems. The formal sciences aid the natural and social sciences by providing information about the structures the latter use to describe the world, and what inferences may be made about them." (link)

"Formal sciences – branches of knowledge that are concerned with formal systems. Unlike other sciences, the formal sciences are not concerned with the validity of theories based on observations in the real world, but instead with the properties of formal systems based on definitions and rules." (link)

"All of science relies heavily on the existing abstract frameworks of mathematics and logic to interpret and describe the evidence it analyzes and ultimately to express its conclusions. Put simply, science uses mathematics and logic as scaffolding to construct predictive models, using empirical evidence as building materials. In this way, all branches of science are concerned with these fields, but no branch of science is directly concerned with advancing them.

"In a similar way, applied fields such as Medicine and Engineering rely heavily on the natural sciences as a framework on which to build, but are not themselves concerned with advancing those fields." (link)

More from Quora: (link)(link)(link)(link)(link)
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The principles underlying mathematics and logic are axiomatic.

Inductive And Deductive Reasoning

Austin Cline has posted a short essay defining deductive and inductive reasoning, with support for the superiority of inductive reasoning in finding new knowledge, even though its conclusions are not as certain as deductive reasoning .  By the way, inductive reasoning is the main tool of science.

A Reminder: The "Slippery Slope" Argument Is A Logical Fallacy

"The slippery slope argument is popular, but I reject it. The definition of marriage does change; that’s a simple fact of history. Instead of focusing on that, focus on the test that doesn’t change: does it cause harm?

Revisiting Dire Predictions of America After Obergefell

Apologetics: A Dead End

There is no evidence for any god, much less the Christian variety of such. All apologetics are unsupported arguments from ignorance, or the 'God of the Gaps" arguments. The best apologists can come up with are testable hypotheses. The testable hypotheses have been falsified.

The Apologist's Argument to the Best Explanation Debunked

The main problem with this philosophical argument (inference to the best explanation) is that, at best, it leads to a testable hypothesis. Apologists run with this and make an argument from ignorance, or form a “God of the Gaps” argument. Science works and has progressed human knowledge by requiring hypotheses to be able to be falsified.  Many claims of religions are not falsifiable, however, all falsifiable hypotheses posited by religious apologists have been falsified. One is entitled to one's opinion, but not one's facts.

Using An Unsupported Conclusion As An Assumption Is An Abuse Of Logic

I have state many times that all arguments for a god are the logical fallacy of argument from ignorance, or the "God of the Gaps" logical fallacy.  Another major example of the apologist's misuse of logic is to insert an unsupported conclusion into an assumption (premise) position.

Five Christian Principles Used to Give the Bible a Pass (2 of 2)

String Theory: Is It Science?

Besides using the term "theory" erroneously (presently, at best it is an untestable speculation), I consider it pre-science.

http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/01/string_theory_has_failed_as_a_scientific_theory.html

Bayes Theorem 101

"Bayesian analysis is an important concept for any scientist and skeptic to understand. It is extremely practical and is already used (whether or not it is explicitly named) in professions that need to deal with probability in a practical way, such as in medicine.

"Bayes Theorem makes explicitly clear several skeptical principles, including the need to consider predictive value, the impact of false positives, the need to consider an alternative hypothesis, and the need to put statistical significance into its proper context.

"In many ways, a Bayesian approach to knowledge is a skeptical approach."

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/what-is-bayes-theorem/

BTW, it can't be used to support claims of miracles. (link)

10 Logical Fallacies To Avoid

It's a good start.

Authority

"So the main issue here may not be mindless obedience so much as the willingness to assume authority figures—that is to say, people we think of as experts—know what's best. If that's the lesson here, then it's imperative to figure out who, exactly, we perceive as an authority, and how they achieve that status."

There are legitimate experts and then there are pretenders.  It is important to know the difference.  An argument from authority isn't necessarily a logical fallacy.

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/the-complex-reasons-we-comply-with-authority

Understand The Limitations of Common Sense.

People like WLC are intelligent and educated, but just don't understand science.  Unfortunately, he is like the vast majority of humanity.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2015/10/how-does-the-kalam-cosmological-argument-suck-let-me-count-the-ways/

Logic Is No Match For Science

"Science giving us counter-intuitive results, results that we’d never arrive at using our limited experience and logic alone, is one of the most spectacular thing about the entire enterprise. If we want to learn about the Universe itself, we have to not only ask it questions about itself, but listen to its answers."

A good example of why science is necessary to best understand reality.

https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/throwback-thursday-logic-is-no-match-for-science-1d163171219

A Quick Lesson In logic

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/a-quick-logic-lesson/