Journal DisownedSky's Journal: Russell's Teapot 30
"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
- Bertrand Russell
Flawed Analogy (Score:2)
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Personally, its because I really hate tea. Oh the other bit- good point.
I've yet to find an organized religion that I could belong to, partly because so many of the people in them have this need for you to believe everything they do. A lot of Athiests fall into the same category, where its not enough for them to not believe in God, but you need to believe it, too.
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As a Catholic married to a Protestant, I completely understand that. Which is why, speaking for myself, I try to not get hung up on the "small" stuff.
For example: Baptism. Should it be done by immersion or by sprinkling? Answer: Depends on who you ask. The Bible just says that Jesus went into the water to be Baptized. Doesn't say He was immerse
Arrrgh! (Score:2)
I agree that the analogy is flawed; the teapot is one that one cannot see because it's too small. People can/cannot see God because since God would infuse the whole system, God's hard to detect or falsify from within the system. Far from being too small, God is (would be) too big!
What we can do, assuming that we're not being actively mislead, is to make deductions about the possible nature of any existant God. To my reckoning, such an entity would (for example) be consist
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What we can do, assuming that we're not being actively mislead, is to make deductions about the possible nature of any existant God. To my reckoning, such an entity would (for example) be consistent with Darwinian evolution (ie. natural selection including speciation), but could (for example) apply an additional selective "pressure".
My sentiment exactly.
It is reasonable to believe there is a God. (Already mentioned in DS's previous JE: Gödel's ontological proof [wikipedia.org], though it should be said Göde
"Positive" (Score:2)
"Positive" has become ubiquitous and meaningless. "Positive" is hereby declared by me to be plus ungood!
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True, but I think it's also an outgrowth of his struggling with infinity -- in effect he's saying that God is the infinite infinite, or absolute infinite, to use Georg Cantor's version.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Ontological Proof (Score:2)
I'll quote Saint Anselm's ontological argument, since it is expressed succinctly in the article.
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My own conception (somewhere inbetween "Tao" and "God") is that this universe has intelligence and even goodwill. However, the emergent ordering force is slow compared with the rush of everyday life, and therefore rarely overwhelms individual events, even though they might be catastophic (a trigger for a much larger chain of events). Instead, the ordering is always in the background, slowly bringing all things into alignment, so that our efforts reinforce, instead of disrupting one another.
Heh. Actually,
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The s
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i still claim it's unreasonable to believe in something created by ancient men who obviously can not be trusted to write accurately about what they observed. everything else written that was obviously false is easy for people to dismiss, unless it's from the bible.
*sigh* it's so worthless to discuss this.
the analogy of the teapot is a damning one when used against those who claim that not having a be
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which is a load of bullshit--the ultimate god of the gaps, infinity being one of our gaps of understanding.
Ummm...no. Read more about Gödel and Cantor, who were both logicians and mathematicians. They were studying infinity as a property of mathematics and pioneered the field.
i still claim it's unreasonable to believe in something created by ancient men who obviously can not be trusted to write accurately about what they observed. everything else written that was obviously false is easy for peopl
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While obviously brilliant, assuming that saying anything about infinity proved anything about god was fairly daft of them. Furthermore, infinity is still mathematical incongruity--even in their work--and therefore, it is a gap in our knowledge. They simply better characterized the problem, but it's still a concept that is incongruous
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While obviously brilliant, assuming that saying anything about infinity proved anything about god was fairly daft of them. Furthermore, infinity is still mathematical incongruity--even in their work--and therefore, it is a gap in our knowledge. They simply better characterized the problem, but it's still a concept that is incongruous to our mathematics and physics.
Actually, their work with infinity is a direct answer to one of Dawkins' "refutations" of God's existence, the Boeing 747 argument. In it, Da
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dawkins said no such thing anywhere in that quote. you're making it into something you want it to be. he's talking about the awe and the wonder and how physicists tend use god as a metaphor for that.
you want to believe it, that's fine. frankly, i wouldn't care if dawkins believed in god, it doesn't make it true. every physicist--even if someone like victor stenger changed his mind--in the world could say there is a god, but that doesn't make it so.
i just wish i could
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dawkins said no such thing anywhere in that quote. you're making it into something you want it to be. he's talking about the awe and the wonder and how physicists tend use god as a metaphor for that.
*shrug* I highlighted the bits that demonstrated what I was talking about and proved my point. Then you throw up your arms and go off in a sulk, without bothering to read or respond to the rest of what I wrote.
i just wish i could've showed you what i see, but it's completely impossible.
Actually, I see so
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richard (our richard, not dawkins) didn't say anything about a concept of god. rdewald has a lot of trouble with irrational beliefs as well--i'm not going to speak for him beyond that. however, he did give me a book about buddhism without beliefs because he has a lot of the same skepticism i do about claims of god. this book shows how the philosophy applies without conjuring any supernatural cruft. almost akin to psychotherapy. i can com
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That's how you've missed the point of what Father Kallistos wrote. He also has skepticism about claims of God, even exhorts people to not make any claims. Just he phrases it rather differently, in the terms of what the Church Fathers wrote, rather than in terms of modern science. It is still essentially the same statement.
All Father Kallistos -- and I -- mean is that God shouldn't be defined beyond the absolute necessity. Searching for God
Thermodynamics (Score:2)
Vacuums fill with particle/anti
Zippy Says (Current /. Page Footer) (Score:2)
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Thermodynamical laws are statistical laws in any case; laws that describe large systems.
And the Universe isn't a large system? That's a novel twist. :-P
The "something from nothing" argument is poor, since it has to occur sometime.
Oh really? Why?
Argument by assertion, dear lad. :-P
Even if you have existance for eternity, there remains the question of existance rather than non-existance.
Nonsense. It is quite possible that the Universe is, in fact, eternal. Indeed physicists have struggled wi
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That said we do differ in outlook, and It's entirely possible that I've made errors of my own. I've certainly made a few mistakes (errors in presentation).
Thermodynamical laws are statistical laws in any case; laws that describe large systems.
And the Universe isn't a large system? That's a novel twist. :-P
Well, okay; my real emphasis is upon the statistics. I misspoke. Particle pairs do spontaneously create in a vac
Infinity (Score:2)
Infinity has one of two meanings in mathematics: infinity can represent a shorthand for a limiting process (as in the sum from 1 to infinity of ½^n); quite a useful concept for escaping from zeno's paradox. Infinity can also be an algebraic or topological completion, as in a plane plus a point 'at infinity' (with a suitable
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Certainly if God existed in a manifested reality, one can see that he might therefore extend to all, but Gödel has not made the jump from posited to manifested reality. Only if you're predisposed to believing in God will you see such logic as compelling. The atheist would find the logic that he exists in no reality equally compelling. The jump from Platonic forms is not granted.
Certainly, and neither I nor Gödel would contest that. Like I mentioned above, Gödel never published the "proof"
God is There? (Score:2)
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Denying what, exactly?
I also made it explicitly clear I'm not arguing for or against the existence of God. Therefore I'm not making any such "argument out of denial". I am solely arguing for the plausibility of the notion -- and that the end result is ultimately unknowable. Either way, people have the option to choose freely and leave it at that.
Please try harder to understand what I write before making false charges. :-P
Cheers,
Ethelred
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I agree. His first axiom is huge, but it and the other axioms allows him to show that in some possible world, there is an object that has the "God property." This leap from the God Property to God is also a point of faith.
Any anyway, none of this has anything to do with the petty, jealous, malicious local yokel God of the Bible, who feared man's ambition because he could build a tower, killed a lot of Egyptian babies just to make a point, and couldn't think of a way to wipe out all mankind without also
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This leap from the God Property to God is also a point of faith.
No, in this case it is a point of logical definition.
Any anyway, none of this has anything to do with the petty, jealous, malicious local yokel God of the Bible, who feared man's ambition because he could build a tower, killed a lot of Egyptian babies just to make a point, and couldn't think of a way to wipe out all mankind without also killing off the plants and animals.
Funny, rather than discuss the possible existence of a Creator, y
Duh. (Score:1)
My animosity isn't toward non-existent beings. Yes, I know that would be absurd. My animosity is toward bullshit.
All analogies expose flaws if stretched hard enough, but this one is actually quite a nice illustration.
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My animosity is toward bullshit.
Given your recent form, you must really hate yourself. :-P
All analogies expose flaws if stretched hard enough, but this one is actually quite a nice illustration.
An illustration of whatever it is you want to see in it.
Cheers,
Ethelred