Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!kilroy
From: kilroy@mimsy.umd.edu (Nancy's Sweetie)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Logic, Preferences, & Belief (was "Muhamad's prophethood")
Message-ID: <4772@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 6 Mar 90 00:25:51 GMT
Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu
Reply-To: Nancy's Sweetie <kilroy@mimsy.umd.edu>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 29
Approved: naim@eecs.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah)


Basalat Ali Raja writes:
>
>For me, the Quran is a *fact*.  It is a truth.  Think of the Quran as a
>collection of statements, as a subset of a universe of statements.  Using
>the basic rules of logic, we can arrive at a closure of this subset; this
>will be all the statements that can be logically derived from the Quran.

Does the Quran itself lay out a system of logic that is to be used, or is
any humanly-derived logic system considered valid?  If the Quran does not
specify a logic system, then it would appear that the overall teachings
can vary dependent upon the philosophical framework of its readers, and
that _any of these is equally valid_.  Is that a correct interpretation
of what you are saying?  If not, what logic is to be used?  How is this
determined?


>Statements which are in the Quranic subset, I feel to be the truth.
>Statements which are not in the Quranic subset, I consider to be 
>incorrect.  Statements which are not in either of the two, I decide
>on the basis of other factors, usually personal preferences etc.

This has come up in other groups, and I've always wondered if it means
what it says.  Do you actually determine the truth or falsehood of a
statement based upon whether you would prefer it to be true?  How?


kilroy@cs.umd.edu          Darren F. Provine          ...uunet!mimsy!kilroy
"There's a lot to be said for brevity." -- Kasey S. Osborn