An odd philosophical conundrum I can't solve

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BenSinner

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Here is a an annoying “claim” I keep trying to prove wrong inside my own head.

“Any logic I use that makes me feel better is wrong. No matter what.”
“Any logic that ruins my faith, makes me feel bad, etc. is correct. No matter what.”

So for example.

“My logic can never know the truth”

I would reply “That statement is verified by using my logic. So my logic CAN know truth.”

Then the annoying rebuttal is “My previous statement helps me feel better about my faith. That means it’s wrong”

So basically, whatever argument I put out to myself that would draw me closer to peace and happiness is “wrong” no matter what,

Any tips on how to break down this conundrum?
 
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logic and better => wrong
logic and not faith => bad and not wrong
logic => not truth

Go learn “natural deduction” or “first order logic” and solve those modus ponens
 
BenSinner said:
Any logic I use that makes me feel better is wrong. No matter what.”

“Any logic that ruins my faith, makes me feel bad, etc. is correct. No matter what.”
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This part is fallacious and without pretty much any merit.
The claim then falls apart.
 
Something I remembered.

There was a time when I was absolutely horrified of the thought that the Catholic Church was the one true faith and I wanted very badly for my Protestant faith to be true…and now currently, knowing the Catholic Church is the one true church is probably the single most thing I find comfort and peace in.

So "“Any logic that ruins my faith, makes me feel bad, etc. is correct. No matter what.” has been contradicted in that instance.

I guess the only thing to tackle now is if I can prove the past is real and that actually happened…
 
You need to see a Doctor, BenSinner. Your problem doesn’t have anything to do with logic.
 
Just make sure the first claim makes you feel better. Then it is automatically wrong and self-contradictory. Bingo.
 
This reminds me of a folk song, I Was Right, I Was Wrong, by David Dodson. I’ll give you just the chorus:
I was right, I was wrong all along
I was right, I was wrong all along
I was wrong all along, and I knew I was wrong
I was right, I was wrong all along
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and I am also reminded of something from St. Paul:
1 Corinthians 1:20
Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?
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and again
1 Corinthians 3:18-20

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you considers himself wise in this age, let him become a fool so as to become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God, for it is written:

“He catches the wise in their own ruses,”

and again:

“The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”
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You have to presuppose the existence of something like God in-order for any syllogism to have a truth value.
 
BenSinner said:
“Any logic I use that makes me feel better is wrong. No matter what.”

“Any logic that ruins my faith, makes me feel bad, etc. is correct. No matter what.”
Click to expand...
Logic is like math. It’s either correct or incorrect. Nothing to do with feeling better or feeling worse or feeling anything at all. If you’re looking for feelings in logic, you’re looking for something that isn’t there.
 
The truth value of a logical determination is independent of your emotions.

Combine it with your previous premise:

If that makes you feel better, it’s false.

If that makes you feel worse, it’s still false.

=
That’s how you know it’s actually true 🙂
 
Logic is very useful precisely because its truth value is free of our emotional biases.

If Hitler said to me 2 + 2 = 4, i would have to agree despite how i feel about his actions. In a sense logic frees us and protects us against delusion and falsehood. It is not to be feared even though it is scary to think that something we value may conflict with reason. I have found in my experience that the more i reason the more i feel justified in holding the values that i hold even though i once feared the opposite would hold true. But logic alone cannot tell us everything so Faith is also important.Faith is not to be feared either so long as it is used in consort with reason.

Why is faith important? “Man cannot live by bread alone”. We are not just animals. There are truths that we can know only because we are personal emotional beings; and logic alone cannot even begin to scratch that surface. In that regard our needs as personal beings can only be met by faith.
 
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‘Feel better’ is an observation about an emotional state. It does not form a useful part of a deductive process based on abstract ideas. For example: “Dogs are animals. Dogs make me feel good when I am with them. Therefore dogs are objectively a good thing” is not valid reasoning because you have to have equated (on some rational basis) that ‘feel good’ and ‘objectively good’ are equivalent.
 
There are different logics with different adequacies to different problems.
 
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