The difficulty of making any kind of argument about anything whatsoever.

Turns out there is a problem with the meaning of words like 'logic' and 'faith'. In point of fact, there is a problem with the meaning of words generally, and even with meaning itself.

The trouble is, you can only define the meaning of words using other words, or perhaps by pointing at an object of reference, but no word or object can be taken as a consistent and clearly defined thing: everything changes constantly. If you want to be really pedantic about it, you can argue we can never know the exact state of all the subatomic particles kicking about the place, so we can never define once and for all where one thing stops and another begins. Eventually, no two people can ever be sure they mean the same thing, nor that anything really exists at all. Maybe we're all living in the matrix. Red or blue pill - take your pick.

This makes it very easy to spend a long time circling around an argument without ever addressing the central issue. You can pick at the precise meaning of words, or - in a tight corner - you can always take the tack that the argument cannot be proven because, subatomic particles being what they are, you can never really prove anything. QED OMG LOL.

Such nit picking is a fine pastime, but it doesn't add much to a discussion. It just takes a long diversion until everybody has established exactly what they are arguing about, so we can be more clear why we disagree. It is ultimately unproductive; after all, just because an argument is made badly doesn't mean its premise is false.

If you argue the world is round, I could argue that 'the world' doesn't mean the same as 'the planet Earth' which in any case is not a perfect sphere but an oblate spheroid with all sorts of bumps, and the assertion that you can know the true shape of an object is unprovable. But that would be a waste of time.

Perhaps we could forgo the dictonary bashing if we were allowed to make one fundamental assumption: that other people mean well.

Faith vs Logic

Response to Victoria Coren's Observer column on belief, 5th Dec 2010.

Trouble is, 'irrational' and 'illogical' sound like bad things.

Without wishing to imply anything bad, theism cannot be 'logical'. As soon as one starts to say "I believe God is like this and wants us to do that", based on scripture or tradition or feeling, surely you have stepped away from logic and into the realm of pure faith. If I'm right and theism is not logical, that makes atheism the logical position - which is not to say that it is better.

We cannot tell whether doing away with religious faith would be overall good or bad. Certainly, faith cannot be blamed for all conflict, and there is nothing wrong with faith as a comfort, but religious faith does cause some problems - those clever atheists will give you the list. This is why secularism, which defends the freedom of religion, is so important.