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Old 08-19-2011, 03:24 AM
unreasonable unreasonable is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Logic View Post
As I have previously emphasised, all belief systems rely on the absence of incontestable proof.

Were truth to be incontestably established, any passionate rhetoric and/or dialectic would ipso facto be rendered superfluous.

As truth cannot be ascertained within belief systems, all belief systems render themselves self perpetuating due to both their protagonist's and antagonist's continual and often passionate reaffirmation of the unknowable.
These are odd statements, especially coming from someone who calls himself Mr Logic.

"all belief systems rely on the absence of incontestable proof" - what about the "belief systems" of mathematics and propositional logic? These have incontestable proofs, since they have axioms.

Inside these systems truths can indeed be ascertained, since the steps by which the axioms can be used to prove other propositions are clear.

Furthermore, your statements are self defeating. If indeed the proposition "truth cannot be ascertained within belief systems" is true, then it cannot be ascertained within the belief system that contains this proposition.

So does this make your expression of the proposition an exercise in "rhetoric", or does it simply mean that your understanding of logic is a lot less impressive that you appear to believe? Or perhaps a more charitable explanation is that you have been unable to communicate clearly?
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