The fist thing I'd like to say, is that if my logic isn't sound, let me know via Facebook message or something like that. The last thing I want to do is look like a jerk talking about logic while using logic that is invalid!
Ok, so there are several things that my Psych professor taught that logically makes sense. Let me start off by saying that I believe that if I [or anyone] were to introduce a line of logic that applies to one area, then it would make logical sense to apply it to different areas to see if the logic holds. What this does, to me in a Christian realm, eliminates Moralism, which says "Black, white. Do it." As I'm sure many who read this realize. As a Christian these areas of "gray" fall into the realm of what's called Christian Liberty. This takes anything not directly declared black or white in Scripture and says, "This is a gray area. This is good, and even beneficial to some people, but to others it is sin." Call it a "Relativistic Doctrine" if you want. But even this follows the logic "Not all things are black and white," therefore it is sound.
Ok, the background has been laid down, here's the meat. The most prominent piece of logic that I'd like to challenge has to do with disciplining your children with some type of hitting, spanking, or what have you. He makes his introductory statements consist of many instances where ordinary children are killed by ordinary disciplines [not abusive in nature]. He gives us some statistics and news articles to back up his claims, and then procedes to concoct an allegory of sorts. He calls it "The Lottery Man." This is how the story goes:
Your child disobeys, and needs a spanking. Instead of just spanking the kid, time seems to slow and you pick up the phone and dial "666." This is the number of the Lottery Man. Upon dialing, A man in appears with a large bin full of lottery balls [one million to be in line with calculatory correctness]. The Lottery Man hands you a ball and you write your child's name on it. The Lottery Man says, "If I pick this ball out of the million contained in my container, then I take your child and lop his head off. But if I don't your child will live to see another disciplining." You pick a ball, and it's blank. The Lottery Man disappears and life continues as normal. It comes time for another spanking, and the same scenario plays out. Soon enough, you end up picking the ball with your child's name on it, and the Lottery Man goes up to your child and cuts his head off. The head then proceeds to bounce across the floor as the Lottery Man laughs at the deed.
That's the end of the story. The story if followed by my professor saying, "Now, you must admit, even if there were 1/1,000,000 chances that you would kill your child accidentally when disciplining them, you'd never hit them again, and believe me, the odds are much greater than that!"
This is the line of logic I'd like to challenge. I challenge it, not because that in this particular instance it's wrong. On the contrary! While it may not be practical, it is at least logical. But it doesn't follow "Jesse's rule for sound logic."
Why? you may ask? Here's why:
Because even though that logic is sound, it should be tested in other areas of his mind. For instance, in any case where there is a small percentage of possible destruction, his logic would say, do not participate. Therefore activities such as driving a car, having gas/electric heat, going out in the sun, eating, drinking, and breathing are all included in that realm. pretty much living is included in that realm. To be more specific, we can narrow the list down to only driving and heating the home, since those have ramifications outside of ourselves. I'm trying to do that in all fairness.
But one area that I think that culture in general would disagree with is that of premarital birth control. Ooooh I said it.
Even with things like condoms and other forms of birth control, there is still a small percentage of STDs that can be transmitted and become infectious. Therefore using birth control is pointless, but so would having sex. Even moreso for the latter.
This poses a new problem. The whole concept of evolutionary thinking is that of Survival of the Fittest, rather the ones that are more likely to reproduce are the ones that will pass down more viable genes to create a better species down the road.
If there is potential to give/contract an STD through sex, then according to his original logic of not participating in something harmful if there is even a small percentage of possibility of that chance occurring, then the very purpose of evolution [which is the religion to which he subscribes] is null, void, and impractical!!!!
Wow, fun huh?
Anyway, I'm not going to even try to create a logical way of thinking to come up with a solution for his statistics on child disciplining. All I'll stick to for that area are the bounds given to me and Scripture.
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