You left out three.
Sorry
Posted on 01/28/2008 9:20:07 AM PST by forkinsocket
Which math-phobic among us has not beseeched God for help with another colon-clenching algebra or calculus exam? Had we heeded the words of the German mathematician Leopold Kronecker, perhaps we would have realized we've been talking to the wrong person: "God made the integers; all else is the work of man."
Pythagoras, who gave us his eponymous theorem on right-angled triangles, headed a cult of number worshippers who believed God was a mathematician. "All is number," they would intone.
The 17th-century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza echoed the Platonic idea that mathematical law and the harmony of nature are aspects of the divine. Spinoza, too, posited that God's activities in the universe were simply a description of mathematical and physical laws. For that and other heretical views, he was excommunicated by Amsterdam's Jewish community.
German mathematician Georg Cantor's work on infinity and numbers beyond infinity (the mystical "transfinite") was denounced by theologians who saw it as a challenge to God's infiniteness. Cantor's obsession with mathematical infinity and God's transcendence eventually landed him in an insane asylum.
For the Hindu math genius Ramanujan, an uneducated clerk from Madras who wowed early 20th-century Cambridge, an equation "had no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God." Though an agnostic, the prolific Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos imagined a heavenly book in which God has inscribed the most elegant and yet unknown mathematical proofs.
And famously, Albert Einstein said God "does not play dice" with the universe.
What is it with God and mathematics? Even as science and religion have quarrelled for centuries and are only recently exploring ways to kiss and make up, mathematicians have been saying for millennia that no truer expression of the divine can be found than in an ethereally beautiful equation, formula or proof.
Witness, for example, such transcendent numbers as phi (not to be confused with pi), often called the Divine Proportion or the Golden Ratio. At 1.618, it describes the spirals of seashells, pine cones and symmetries found throughout nature. Other mysterious constants like alpha (one-137th) and gamma (0.5772...) pop up in enough odd places to suggest to some that they are an expression of the underlying beauty of mathematics, and to others that someone or something planned it that way.
But does that translate into actual belief?
The New York Times reported recently that mathematicians believe in God at a rate 2 1/2 times that of biologists, quoting a survey of the National Academy of Sciences. Admittedly, that's not saying much: Only 14.6 per cent of mathematicians embraced the God hypothesis, versus 5.5 per cent of biologists (versus some 80 per cent of Canadians who believe in a supreme being).
Count John Allen Paulos among the non-believers. A mathematician who teaches at Temple University in Philadelphia and who has popularized his subject in bestselling books such as Innumeracy and A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, Paulos's latest offering is a slim but explosive volume whose title is self-explanatory: Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up (Hill & Wang).
This newest addition to the neo-atheist field crowded by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and others emboldened by the recent transformation of non-belief from a 97-pound weakling into a he-man, Paulos thankfully employs little math, preferring to see things, as he tells us, in the stark light of "logic and probability."
Deploying "a lightly heretical touch," he dissects a playlist of "golden oldies" that includes the first-cause argument (sometimes tweaked as the cosmological argument, which hinges on the Big Bang), the argument for intelligent design, the ontological argument (crudely, that if we can conceive of God, then God exists), the argument from the anthropic principle (that the universe is "fine-tuned" to allow us to exist), the moral universality argument, and others.
The famous Pascal's wager – that it's in our self-interest to believe in God because we lose nothing in case He does exist – is upended as logically flawed, based on what statisticians call Type I and Type II errors.
Lord knows Paulos isn't the first mathematician to proclaim his lack of religious faith. Cambridge's famous wunderkind G.H. Hardy loudly and proudly adjudged God to be his enemy. To Erdos, God, if He existed, was "the supreme fascist."
Even as Paulos works to refute the classical arguments for God's existence, he does something too few of his mindset do: Chide non-believers for unsportsmanlike conduct.
"It's repellent for atheists or agnostics," he admonishes, "to personally and aggressively question others' faith or pejoratively label it as benighted flapdoodle or something worse. Those who do are rightfully seen as arrogant and overbearing."
That doesn't prevent him from doffing the gloves. The ontological argument is "logical abracadabra.'' The design, or teleological argument, is a "creationist Ponzi scheme'' that "quickly leads to metaphysical bankruptcy.''
Much of theology is "a kind of verbal magic show.'' A claim that a holy book is inerrant because the book itself says so is another logical black hole.
However, math, specifically something called Ramsey theory, which studies the conditions under which order must appear, can account for the illusion of divine order arising from chaos.
Paulos provides a nice counterpoint to theoretical physicist Stephen Unwin's 2003 book The Probability of God, which calculated the likelihood of God's existence at 67 per cent, and to Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne's use of a probability formula known as Bayes' theorem to put the odds of Christ's resurrection at 97 per cent.
Those and other efforts remind one of the story, perhaps apocryphal, of Catherine the Great's request of the German mathematical giant Leonhard Euler to confront atheist French philosopher Denis Diderot with evidence of God. The visiting Euler agreed, and at the meeting, strode forward to proclaim to the innumerate Frenchman: "Sir, (a+bn)/n = x, hence God exists. Reply!"
Diderot was said to be so dumbfounded, he immediately returned to Paris.
To Paulos, the tale is a great example of "how easily nonsense proffered in an earnest and profound manner can browbeat someone into acquiescence."
His arguments notwithstanding, Paulos concedes that there's "no way to conclusively disprove the existence of God."
The reason, he notes, is a consequence of basic logic, but not one "from which theists can take much heart."
As for the problem of good and evil, he defers to fellow atheist, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg: "With or without religion, good people will do good, and evil people will do evil. But for good people to do evil, that takes religion."
Or as Paulos might say, no mathematician has ever deliberately flown planes into buildings.
Ron Csillag is a freelance writer from Thornhill.
Bovine Excrement.
One, two, five.
—b—
You left out three.
Next is seven.
It is a nice sounding theory that when you separate the Christian Church from the state, you get stability, but it does not pass the common sense test.
For instance, I know it is the first words out of any atheist mouth when you try to talk with them about Jesus, “Explain the Inquisition," and “Look how evil the church was!" and "Look what they did in the name of Jesus!"
It is true that about 500 years ago, Christian fanatics killed about 10,000 people over a 100 year time period (about 100/year) in the name of the Roman Catholic church. It is a shame on the record of an organization that claims to be promoting the ministry of Christ. Now compare this record to the example of the countries that have officially done away with religion. To the countries that have outright banned religion and imprisoned those who try to practice it (the ultimate test of the theory of separation of church and state).
Yes, I am talking about Communist countries. In the Communist Manifesto, Engel and Marx declared, "Communism abolishes all religion." In my father's lifetime, the numbers of people that officially atheist countries have murdered in the name of no-religion is staggering; the USSR slaughtered 20 million, China slaughtered 10 million, Communist Cambodia slaughtered 2 million, Communist North Korea has/continues to murder untold numbers, Communist Cuba has/continues to murder untold numbers, the list goes on.
The grand total is over 50 million dead in the last 80-year time span (over 600,000/year). Even comparing the worst time of "Christian Persecution" to an average time of a just one country that has officially and forcefully separated church and state, the conclusion is obvious: Christianity has a huge calming influence on government.
Atheists love to hark back to the dark days of Christian sectarian violence, but it is Christian Europe with its underpinnings of Judaic law that brought forth western civilization. The bad is infinitesimal compared to the good in western civilization. We had better resolve to defend it.
2banana
ping for future.
God is an APPLIED mathematician.
Yeah.
The greatest murderers in history... Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot... all were highly religious. /sarc. LOL!
They were atheists. Like 86% of mathematicians. Like the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg. Like Margaret Sanger.
Just anti-religious bigotry.
I’m sure in the heart of the person that spake thus, he’s only referring to Christianity.
One tidbit for everyone - ever wonder why the Muslims didn’t advance ANY science of their own except for what they stole from conquered civilizations?
In Christianity, we believe that God is good and consistent. For example, we assume that He wouldn’t make the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter different in different cases.
Any such “chaining” of “Allah” would be viewed as a beheadable offense in Islam.
You left out three.
Sorry
That it is alot of fish?
It's the birthday of anyone born on May 3, year 1?
Depends upon whether one has enough fries and tartar sauce.
But then, for me, a good fish dinner is Long John Silvers, LOL
LOL, or January 5, of 3?
Nice Reply.
Do you have a source for your statistics?
I went the other way 'cause my BD is on May 3!...felt a kind of kindred relationship, ya see...
They are all over the net. This is a good source (and yes, I was very conservative with the numbers)
http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm
Theists view scientology that way. If I decide I believe that Zeus and Thor are real, or unicorns, or the Easter Bunny, or pink elephants, wouldn't it be flapdoodle? If not, then what in the hell would be? If you believe in something without evidence, you should be prepared to have your views be characterized as flapdoodle.
Actually, some would argue that phi is NOT transcendent.
A transcendent can not be represented on only 1 side of an equation -- there has to be another transcendent on the other side. In other words, you can't write an equation on the left using only rational numbers and have, for example, pi on the right side of the equal sign. . . .
Now I can say anything I want, tell jokes, or insult people because everyone's eyes have already glazed over or you've moved on to the next comment already.
Another interesting feature of the number 153 is that it's the limit of the following algorithm: Take a random number, divisible by three. Split that number into its base 10 digits. Take the sum of their cubes. Go to the second step. An example, starting with the number 84: 83 + 43 = 512 + 64 = 576 53 + 73 + 63 = 125 + 343 + 216 = 684 63 + 83 + 43 = 216 + 512 + 64 = 792 73 + 93 + 23 = 343 + 729 + 8 = 1080 13 + 03 + 83 + 03 = 1 + 0 + 512 + 0 = 513 53 + 13 + 33 = 125 + 1 + 27 = 153 13 + 53 + 33 = 1 + 125 + 27 = 153
Whatever number you start with, you'll eventually end up with 153.
Here is a cute joke for everyone.
Little Johnny was failing math, so his mommy and daddy enrolled him in a private Catholic school. His math scores soared, and when Johnny’s mommy asked him why he was doing so much better at math at the Catholic school he replied, “I didn’t want to end up like that poor kid tied to the plus sign in every classroom.”
Pretty wild - I was thrown by the lack of superscript for a second there and then I saw what was going on.
thanks ...
There is a slippery slope from number theory to numerology to insanity.
Ambition often incorporates God as its handyman.
An interesting book from the 1970’s, “Godel, Escher, Bach,”
sheds light on the inherent impossibility of using mental constructs like mathematics, logic, or probability theory to answer questions about the existence of God or about the origin of the universe. Godel’s incompleteness theorem posits the impossibility of proving - or disproving - something about a system (e.g., its origin) from within that system.
Interestingly, the book has been used to promote both agnosticism and fundamentalism.
Articles like this remind me of a story I read once about the atheist and the bear.
An atheist was walking through the woods. As he walked he marveled and said to himself,
“What majestic trees, what powerful rivers, what beautiful animals!”
As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. When he turned to see what was making the sound, he saw a grizzly bear charging towards him.
Not wanting to be food for a bear and fertilizer for the forest, he started running up the path as fast as he could. After running for what seemed like forever, he looked over his shoulder to see if he was safe. Unfortunately for him, the bear could run faster and was closing in fast.
He was now giving it all he had, as his heart started beating faster and faster. With sweat now streaming down his face he was running faster then he had ever ran before. After a few moments he looked over his shoulder again, just to see that the bear was within a couple of feet.
While still running as fast as he could to escape the fierce looking bear, he tripped over a rock and tumbled to the ground. Like a ninja in a cheap kung-fu movie he was able to roll and tumble smoothly back to his feet, but by now the bear was right at his heels. He no sooner got to his feet and his head hit a low hanging branch that knocked him flat on his back. In what seemed like slow motion, the atheist attempted to roll over to his knees and pick himself up. His effort was futile though, as the bear swung its mighty paw and knocked him back to the ground. Looking up, all he could see was the grizzlies opened mouth full of teeth, drooling and ready to snap his head off.
In that instant the atheist screamed, and out of his mouth came a phrase that was so out of character that it shocked him. With a scream that would make Jamie Lee Curtis proud, the atheist screamed loudly,
“Oh my God!”
Then, as if his life and the world around him was nothing but a DVD movie,
Time Stopped
The bear froze
The forest was silent
And even the wind stopped blowing
Then a bright light shone upon the man, and a voice came out of the sky,
“You deny My existence for all these years. You teach others that I don’t exist, and you even credit My creation to a cosmic accident. Do you really expect me, the great “I AM”, to help you out of this predicament? And even if I did help you, could I count on you to be believer?”
Stunned by the turn of events, the atheist thought for a moment and considered his predicament. He looked around at the still trees and then up at the now frozen bear who’s saliva was even frozen in time like ice sickles hanging from a roof in the middle of winter. Then he looked into the light and quietly but assertively said in a classic college professors wine,
“It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now. Perhaps you could instead make this bear a Christian?”
Out of the light came a voice that made the whole forest tremble,
“Very Well, so be it.”
As quick as everything stopped, the light went out, and the sounds returned. Startled by the many sounds he now heard, the atheist almost forgot about his predicament when a drop of saliva hit his cheek.
He looked up in astonishment as the bear rearranged him self and sat on the atheist’s chest putting his paws together. Almost out of breath from the bears weight, the atheist was stunned to hear the bear speak as he prayed out loud,
“Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen.”
“As I live, says the LORD, Every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall confess to God.”
Romans 14:11 (NKJV)
This is one of the Csillagist articles I’ve ever seen.
The problem with that is, without G-d to define what is good and what is evil, those terms are meaningless.
And yet Abe Foxman just keeps perking along!
Here in Cincinnati, Ohio, we have a “Margaret Sanger Family Planning Center” downtown. I have to laugh when the All So Loving Liberals pay the woman lip-service. Yep, if Margaret had her way these many years ago, 80% of the “poor people of color” that suffer today under the horrible Capitalistic lash would not have a care in the world. (Of course, because Ms. Sanger would have had their great grandparents sterilized to prevent the Morlocks from out-breeding we the white upper classes.
Only G-d and not any human being (or group of human beings, or majority of human beings, or the human race as a whole) can define objective evil. Without G-d objective evil does not, and cannot, exist.
Atheists who condemn "evil" are both hypocritical and parasitic. And Theists who judge G-d by a standard of good and evil apart from His own sovereign decrees are wrong.
“Csillagist?”
I didn’t know that, so I looked it up (search for “fish” in Bible) and found this:
John 21 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
1 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias.[a] It happened this way:
2 Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.
3 “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
5 He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”
“No,” they answered.
6 He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.
7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.
8 The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.
9 When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.
10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.”
11 Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn...
It’s kinda of interesting that John went to the trouble to mention the count of the fish. Or course he did a lot of little details like that. He refers to himself as “the other disciple” and noted that he outran Peter to the Empty Tomb if my Gospel of John class memory serves.
Wish I had torn out that article. It was something like “Mathematics in the Gospels” or something like that.
The most murderous regimes (Communist Russia, China, etc.) in all of history had Atheism as their state "religion". 100 MILLION DEAD and counting...
poong
"how easily nonsense proffered in an earnest and profound manner can browbeat someone into acquiescence."What an excellent description of how environmentalist propaganda works!
I throw Rummel’s site in the face of Lefties all the time:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
Catherine the Great's request of the German mathematical giant Leonhard Euler to confront atheist French philosopher Denis Diderot with evidence of God. The visiting Euler agreed, and at the meeting, strode forward to proclaim to the innumerate Frenchman: "Sir, (a+bn)/n = x, hence God exists. Reply!" Diderot was said to be so dumbfounded, he immediately returned to Paris.I think it's more likely that Diderot said to himself: "That's it. I've had enough of these stupid Russians and their bad food. I'm going back to Paris and civilization!"
(Note: I'm not Christian.)
I think when the books are finally opened with respect to China, it will be way more than 10M dead. I’m thinking it’s off by an order of magnitude.
I wonder if Paulos and other foundling atheists will ever come to realize that Heisenberg found the fundamental proof for God’s inflicting free will upon the human species? Without uncertainty there is no freewill ... but then, uncertainty arises from limits to our temporal perspective not from irrationality.
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