I've tried writing three different posts with that title in mind. But Logic is so fickle and so subjective I get lost in the discussion with myself. It starts to sound like I'm arguing with myself, or rambling on. It's easy to go around and around in circles. Imagine what it's like when two or more people try using logic to back up their claims!
LOGIC can give us an indication of what probably happened in the past, according to the best of our observations, knowledge, and reasoning. Logic is simply and very simply a method FOR reasoning, not the end result of our reasoning and thinking.
Think of that sentence above. Those are a lot of conditions that have to be met to figure out the best "truth" we can figure out. Think of that for a minute. Even if we use the BEST archaeological findings, the BEST scientific reasoning, and pair both of those with the most complete basis of previous knowledge, we are still only reaching as high as is within our current grasp for the moment and we still could be wrong!
Now, let's look at reality. There is too much for any one person to know, too much for even many large groups, organizations, and bureaucracies to know. And even with a large mastermind group of the most brilliant scientists, trying to get a unanimous consensus between them is near impossible. Why? Because each person will have a slightly different perspective on their field of expertise, a slightly different collection of knowledge in their head, and a slightly different aim for their intentions or their predictions.
And this is only to decide what physical events actually occurred or are occurring!
Now try to figure out what emotions a person was feeling as those events occurred. Or what the motives of a person were as they carried out their deeds. Some motives and emotions will be obvious but most will be....extremely complicated.
Was Genghis Khan actually a good guy, like most natives to Mongolia believe, or as my friend asserted in his Master's Thesis? What about Napoleon or Charlemagne? How about Robin Hood, or even more complicated: Prince John Lackland, King of England (Robin Hood's nemesis)
Was Joseph Smith an honest man? Are all Anti-Mormon articles written out of spite, bias, or ill-intent? What about LDS apologists? How many articles are written out of ignorance? If ignorance is intentional, does that make the person dishonest?
Am I a good person?
The phrase, "By their fruits ye shall know them." Is a very loaded sentence. What constitutes a "fruit" and which fruits should you judge a person by, their intentional fruits, or all of them: mistakes and successes?
We can look up the diaries of the limited perspectives of outsiders, or even insiders and try to draw conclusions about a person like Joseph Smith. If his closest friends assert to his prophetic position, if his wife stood by his side, and if the thousands of followers and members of the church praise him, that's worth considering. What about a handful of detractors who make claims that he behaved inappropriately. Was he righteously following the commands of a demanding God, was he acting on his own? How do we know?
We really can't. From the reports of those men and women who say Joseph Smith made mistakes or poor decisions it sounds like he's an awful guy! Looking at only those things and those perspectives, it paints him in a really negative light! And in the end, we can't really know if he was acting under God's direction or not unless God himself told us, can we? If we decide for ourselves, "Well, NO prophet would ever act like that!" then we are taking on ourselves the title of "Expert on Prophetic Behavior" and that would be an arrogant position for us to take onto ourselves, wouldn't it?
What if we take a look at the whole? What if we take a look at the countless visitations, revelations, evidences, and experiences (many of which were experienced WITH another person present!) What if we look at the testimonies of his wife? His best friends? His family members and siblings? We get an entirely different picture. Emma Smith is reported to have loved Joseph until her dying breath. We know from many accounts that she was not some mousy, submissive woman. She had a strong will, a strong intellect and mind. She knew most of the accounts that are being used to paint Joseph in a negative light, and she loved him to the end all anyway. So did most of his colleagues and followers.
Emotionally, mentally, culturally, historically, and academically, it would be EXTREMELY difficult for Joseph Smith to have come up with what he did. Pretty well impossible. For an uneducated person, raised in a fairly uneducated family and community, with no access to history books or outside cultures, to write so much at such a young age, so well, with archaeological and cultural influences included into the Book of Mormon things that weren't known to the scientific experts or the public for another hundred years, would be...tough, to put it mildly.
Logic doesn't say, "You can find the truth if you put undue emphasis on the 'negative' qualities of a person." Logic says, "You have to look at EVERYTHING, and then accept what seems most reasonable, probable, or likely."
If I give you the statement, "2+2=4" you may not realize it, but you are making a LOT of assumptions in deciding whether I wrote a true math statement there. You are assuming I'm using a base-10 counting system (10 digits, 1-10, or 0-9, etc), you are assuming that the + sign I used is an additive function, and that the = sign is a statement of equality. You are assuming I am meaning true whole integers and not rounded-off measurements of an actual item, which could carry margins of error (close to 2 inches, plus close to 2 inches is about the same as 4 inches, if I actually new what an inch was).
Logic still expects you to make assumptions about my statement based on likelihoods of what I HAVEN'T told you. I didn't tell you all those background items, you had to assume them. You are MOST likely right, because I was trained in an American school using similar math techniques as the rest of you, but there's no guarantee you are.
If I took a document that inspired millions of other people, say, the Declaration of Independence, or the American Constitution, and take versions of that text, with similar principles, switch it all up, repackage it, spread it to every culture across the globe and present it in a way they will be the most receptive to it, good will likely be done to all of them and they will respect and venerate that document appropriately.
Now what if an outsider sees these similarities and similar documents and teachings across all these cultures, but this outsider has somehow learned that each was a fabrication by an uninspired and unlearned person, it could be a logical conclusion that since they were all faked, the information contained in them is not worth basing a life on. Or you could make the logical conclusion that even if those texts are imperfect, the contents are good and wholesome and uplifting for the most part and ARE worth basing a life on until something better can be found. Or another logical conclusion could be that with so many similarities across cultures there was an original pure and undiluted source that all these things sprang from. An original that WASN'T fake. Logic helped come up with three different outcomes from the same situation. Logic is a tool and will be used differently by people with different sets of information.
Do people make unlogical conclusions about religion, even and especially their own? Absolutely, all the time. But what constitutes a logical or unlogical decision? That's a tough one, since so many things go into the formation of an opinion or action. There is almost always a reason for someone's actions. Even if WE don't think it was a logical decision, that person definitely would. The difference is in what information we have access to.
Can people make logical decisions based on or about their emotions? Absolutely. Can people make logical decisions based solely on intellect? Of course, or, they can try. If an action makes me feel good, the logical thing to do is keep doing that until some new bit of information or experience says otherwise. Some people's intellectual capacity is greater than others, and for others, their emotional intelligence is greater. Which is more important? Depends what you value, or were taught to value by your society and family.
What if a person has a very similar set of information as us (a family member, or close friend) and makes a very different decision from us? Should we assume they are crazy, or misled, or deluded? No. Should we assume they are mistaken? Not really. What we should be is understanding, loving, and kind while we share each other's knowledge as best as we can, and still be understanding if we stick with different decisions. We cannot share everything we know, no matter how hard we try. We cannot live another person's life, and until we can, we won't know everything that led them to their logical decision.
My decisions to devalue the attacks and claims of those against the church stems firstly from undeniable experiences that the Book of Mormon is correct enough for me to stake my life on and that the priesthood I hold is a real force. Secondly, it stems from an overwhelming majority of experiences I've had that those who attack the church either have incorrect information, are intentionally being misleading, or are putting an unfair emphasis on smoking guns, secondhand accounts, or details that are incomplete and must be filled in by assumptions they make using their own personal backgrounds.
I KNOW the Book of Mormon is True, that Jesus is the Christ, and that the Priesthood is REAL. More than anything else, I know those things, because I received that information from The Source, undiluted, and unmistakable, specific and more real than anything else I have ever experienced. I could taint and destroy that knowledge by filling my mind with opposing thoughts, or putting undue emphasis on assumptions and guesses, or I could keep it clean and bright. Letting it corrode isn't a sign that the knowledge was false, only that I let my perception and memory of it degrade. I can't speak for others' testimonies, only of my own, which is the most important one, to me.
The only person who could accurately and completely use Logic to determine absolute truth or reality, is an all-knowing God. Anyone else who claims they can is...mistaken.
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