"Truth Doesn't Apply To My Arguments"

Perhaps as a child you remember playing some kind of game where one kid would say something to the effect of "Well I have a magic shield and none of your bullets can hurt me" after this statement all chaos breaks loose as the other child replies "well I have an even more magic gun that can shoot through your shield" as the friend snaps back "No! nothing can shoot through my magic shield" and they go back and forth until something else catches their short attention span.  I think most of us have observed this or participated in something similar in our lives. Perhaps we enjoy looking back and having a chuckle due to our childhood ignorance.

Sadly many of us haven't gotten over this childhood phase and use this same argument in our adult lives.  It is not just used from time to time but probably by the majority of mankind! "Nonsense!" you may claim "I have yet to see it!".  Well it is not all that hard to find, all that it takes is a serious talk about religion and god and you will see how childish grown men really are.

In any strenuous debate over religion the theist is always forced to make a separation between logic and reality.  Most theists are quite comfortable with this.  If you ask them "do you believe that logic and empirical evidence do not apply to god?" most of them will agree with little concern. I have heard may theists state flatly that the scientific method does not apply to god.  But usually to get to this point in the arguments contention is already high and the response comes out quite aggressively "god is beyond logic! he created it!" or perhaps "the things of man cannot be applied to god".  Most of us atheists may roll our eyes and shake our heads to this and maybe leave it at "lets agree to disagree", but I am not so sure we truly understand what this Argument means.

When a person says that "logic does not apply to god" what they are really saying is "rationality does not apply to my arguments" In other words the only way we have of determining truth and falsehood doesn't apply to anything they believe. Well that is quite convenient how isn't it?  I will have to remember that trick next time I am in a debate "oh yeah by the way logic doesn't apply to what I believe, oh yeah and the neither does the scientific method, or empirical facts" or in other words: I win because I feel like it. Sounds a lot like the child with the magical shield now doesn't it?

The clear meaning of this "argument" is simply a desperate attempt to believe in something despite reason and evidence. The last resort of some one who is cornered by logic is to claim that it doesn't apply to his beliefs. 

The most basic principle of logic is truth vs falsehood.  To say that logic does not apply to god but in the same breath say that he exists (or that it is true that god exists) is both endorsing and denouncing logic all at once. If I were to tell you that 2+2=5 is true, but truth doesn't apply to my argument all at once, you would call me crazy. Perhaps you should use your definition of insanity consistently.