I will admit upfront that any attempt to write something perfectly logical about God is a bit like attempting to write a critical review of a Ben Affleck movie.  We all no he's not really a capable actor but we still bring the DVD home from the rental store with great hope and anticipation.  It is illogical, of course, to do so, but, we just can't help ourselves.  I'm not a woman and I'm heterosexual but I still find myself wanting Mr. Affleck to live up to his promise in at least one movie.  I often feel the same way about God.  I find myself hoping that God really will heal some of the sick people sending their money to charlatans on television or their cousins at the local level.  It seems to me that our hopes for a benevolent Creator are very similar to our hopes for Ben's movies.  We hope many things about the God/s of our religions.  But from what I am able to observe, the faithful don't get any different treatment than the militant atheist or the person like me that just doesn't get all the fuss.  I am successful, happy, well-adjusted, and healthy.  I try to do the right things as best I can figure out what that is and things seem to turn out fine for me.  A religious person would say that my life is "blessed".  My question is, What about that devout person in African dying of starvation and aids in Sudan partly because of their Christianity puts them on the wrong of side of the current political wave in their country?  Doesn't God get it?  If I were Jesus, I would play Robin Hood and have a few my followers sell some SUV's and Hybrid Honda's to buy a few million doses of HIV cocktails for my followers in Africa.

Smart, honest, and ambitous people succeed in a system where there are opportunities to be successful. But so do dishonest, smart, and ambitious people.  Why would anyone think it could be different?  The smart and dishonest person may pay a cause and effect price by not being trustworthy but I see no evidence that God's sun shines any less brightly on lies than on the fervent prayer of a righteous man.  The success of organized crime worldwide should be ample evidence of this for anyone who cares to view the evidence without moral bias.  Besides, most mob bosses care about thier own families in much the same way that the elders of a local parish do.  In fact, sometimes they are the same families!

I submit that it simply isn't logical to spend a great deal of time determining things related to the concept of God.  I challenge anyone to go buy a good primer on logical thinking and instead of spending an hour per week reading ancient scriptures, spend that time studying logic.  Every logical person that I have ever met, regardless of their faith or lack of faith, is a person that is sufficiently kind, seemingly happy, successful at some level, and capable of adding value to the their world in greater proportion than they take from the world.  I'm not suggesting anyone make an irrational God out of logic.  I am suggesting better thinking leads to a better life by any of the common ways we measure a better life.

Read your Bible too, if you must.  But if you must, spend lots of time in the Book of the Hebrew Proverbs as they are the most perfectly logical book of the Bible.

I have been reading a number of blogs lately while considering a proper theme for my own blog.  I have decided on "Perfect Logic" as my blog title.  My theme is that I want to think through many issues that seem to cause so much disagreement in the world using the most logical arguments that I am able to grasp and express.

I welcome comments from anyone but I will simply delete any comments that contain attacks, engage in name-calling, or deviate from civil discourse.

Topics that interest me include but are not limited to EXISTENCE, GOD, GOVERNMENT, HUMAN POTENTIAL, LAW, POLITICS, WAR, PEACE, COMPASSION, SELF-ESTEEM, MORALITY, SEX, RELATIONSHIPS, FAMILY, PARENTING, MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, WORK, CAREERS, SPORTS, CURRENT EVENTS, PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS, RELIGION, HISTORY, BEHAVIOR, PSYCHOLOGY, PHYSICS, BIOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, ARCHEOLOGY, ASTRONOMY (NOT ASTROLOGY!), AND FRIENDSHIP.  Obviously, this is just meant as partial list and more for my own thought processes than for you if your are reading this.

I guess a good place to start is what is the logic, if any, of blogging?  Is this a good use of my time?  Should I be spending the same amount of time doing something else?  If there is a value to blogging, what is the value?

My thought is that there is value to joining the fray of bloggers even if it is just to get a sense of what the phenomenom is all about.  After all, when my grandchildren read about blogs in their history class or see a VH1 flashback to the OO's, I don't want to have to say, "I never had one."

Is that a "logical" position to take?  It is certainly "practical" but I don't know how much that should weigh as far is the logic of exercise is concerned.

My other thought is that not many of us take much time to write anything for ourselves anymore.  We don't write letters to people anymore.  We write emails.  Emails don't really say anything.  Emails, for all their technological sophistication, are actually very crude in practice.  I can't even remember that last time I got a thoughtful email from anyone or the last time that I sent a thoughtful email to anyone.

So, I'll add the value of taking a little a bit time to be thoughtful to the positive side of the ledger.  I believe previous generations of educated people wrote more often and wrote more carefully and thoughtfully than what passes for writing today.  I believe writing made them better thinkers.  A better thinker might be called a more logical thinker in some circles.  If blogging can serve to help me become more logical in my thinking then can I infer (is that the right logic term - infer) that it can help me become a better thinker?  And from this, can it follow that if I become a better thinker that I might make better decisions in all areas?  If I make better decisions, can I reasonably expect my life to improve in both the short and the long term?

It seems to me that I've created a fairly decent logical justification for starting this blog.  What do you think?