Is God real post your thoughts!

[Shinjula]

ah, that old chestnut, um, are you aware that in those terms its also just a theory that you are sat on a chair, its also just a theory that you live in america?

[Shinjula]

everything is a theory in those term, but a scientific theory is a testable one, one that can predict events which we can then use to develop technologiesr.

 

Your theory about god does none of these which is why it is not a scientific theory.

 

 

 

In science there is a difference between a theory and a hypothesis, god is a hypothesis, the big bang is a theory.

 

[incidentally in case you have the wrong perception, i should mention i totally believe in god, but just very differently to you]

[warri0r45]

Yet it will always be a "theory" and just like God will never be proven.

 

 

 

"Scientific theories are explanations that are based on lines of evidence, enable valid predictions, and have been tested in many ways. In contrast, there is also a popular definition of theory a "guess" or "hunch." These conflicting definitions often cause unnecessary confusion about evolution."

 

 

 

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar ... ns_faq.php

 

 

 

From the site I linked you. As it explains, a theory is not a guess or a hunch, it's an explanation which makes testable predictions and is based on evidence. God is not equitable to the scientific theory of evolution.

[Shinjula]

Although I'd like to put in that as I've progressed through learning mathematics (I did my degree in it and now work in a related field - I'm a sculptor who creates pieces based on mathematics), I do find more an more evidence, through the sheer elegance and beauty of mathematics of a god, which is kinda working as theory at least in my head, but its certainly not approaching the provenness (is that a word) of the big bang theory.

 

 

 

Maths is the reason i believe in god.

 

I'd quite like to debate this both with christians and athiests alike. I've never put my own beliefs up for inspection before, mostly because they seem to me most uncommon, but if anyone would like to, I'd be more than happy to.

 

[i'm currently thinking how to write a post to best explain some of the thoughts ive had, but please feel free to ask question in the mean time]

[Obtaurian]

Although I'd like to put in that as I've progressed through learning mathematics (I did my degree in it and now work in a related field - I'm a sculptor who creates pieces based on mathematics), I do find more an more evidence, through the sheer elegance and beauty of mathematics of a god, which is kinda working as theory at least in my head, but its certainly not approaching the provenness (is that a word) of the big bang theory.

 

 

 

Maths is the reason i believe in god.

 

I'd quite like to debate this both with christians and athiests alike. I've never put my own beliefs up for inspection before, mostly because they seem to me most uncommon, but if anyone would like to, I'd be more than happy to.

 

[i'm currently thinking how to write a post to best explain some of the thoughts ive had, but please feel free to ask question in the mean time]

 

 

 

I'm not interested in debating your beliefs, but I am very curious to hear them. If you can, please elaborate.

[Shinjula]

lol, well it was properties of circles which started it all off for me.

 

The proportion of the radius to the circumference of a diameter is half that of the proportion of radius to the are of a circle, which is 4/3 the proportion of the radius to the volume of a sphere.

 

The question I have is, why?

 

Pi has some really weird properties, and it seems to me that there must be a reason behind it.

 

The only reason I can come up with is that it was designed that way.

 

It clearly isnt a random phenomena, its very precise the way pi crops up in all sorts of places.

 

The only thing I can imagine is that some sort of agency set it up that way.

 

Now I've looked a bit into intelligent design (in a disapproving kinda way) and found it very lacking because of obvious flaws, but those flaws dont seem to crop up in mathematics, there arguments against intelligent design which are nonsense in a biological setting which appear to me to apply here such as that "What use is half an eye" argument, mathematics is not an evolved system it seems to be existing in its entirety without anything to have sprung it into existence, yet it is a highly complex system, where did it come from?

 

It doesnt seem to me to be something we are creating, since we cannot create it to be different than what it is, we arent engineering a creation, when you attemtp to prove a theorem it is either true or false, and thats not decidable by the mathematician.

 

 

 

The clincher for me was the discovery of a formula when i was studying my a-levels which blew my socks away...

 

e^ip + 1 = 0

 

the seven most basic components of mathematics of maths all contained in one simple formula, with no real explanation of its existence.

 

 

 

I find it very difficult to concieve of a universe where this just sprung up from nowhere.

 

 

 

One of the most important arguments in the debate about god is the anthropic principle, it work even on a universe scale, that we are here observing this universe purely because this is the sort of universe where life can exist, but it seems to me that this most powerful argumet still doesnt help with mathematics as mathematics is independent from the universe, things true in mathematics would be true no matter what sort of universe you lived in, the language used to describe them would obviously vary dependant on the culture but the threads that bind them are the same, and even in a barren universe mathematics whilst lying dormant would still underlie that universe.

 

 

 

My only conclusion is that there must be some sort of agency involved.

 

 

 

One obvious problem worth mentioning with the idea of an agency is whether or not it too would be subject to mathematics, and im interested in debating this with others.

 

 

 

But the level of beauty I have found in mathematics (try looking up minimal surfaces for some amazing structures, or just remember all those fractal pictures from the eighties) does make me think there is something of an artist behind it all.

[Obtaurian]

lol, well it was properties of circles which started it all off for me.

 

The proportion of the radius to the circumference of a diameter is half that of the proportion of radius to the are of a circle, which is 4/3 the proportion of the radius to the volume of a sphere.

 

The question I have is, why?

 

Pi has some really weird properties, and it seems to me that there must be a reason behind it.

 

The only reason I can come up with is that it was designed that way.

 

It clearly isnt a random phenomena, its very precise the way pi crops up in all sorts of places.

 

The only thing I can imagine is that some sort of agency set it up that way.

 

Now I've looked a bit into intelligent design (in a disapproving kinda way) and found it very lacking because of obvious flaws, but those flaws dont seem to crop up in mathematics, there arguments against intelligent design which are nonsense in a biological setting which appear to me to apply here such as that "What use is half an eye" argument, mathematics is not an evolved system it seems to be existing in its entirety without anything to have sprung it into existence, yet it is a highly complex system, where did it come from?

 

It doesnt seem to me to be something we are creating, since we cannot create it to be different than what it is, we arent engineering a creation, when you attemtp to prove a theorem it is either true or false, and thats not decidable by the mathematician.

 

 

 

The clincher for me was the discovery of a formula when i was studying my a-levels which blew my socks away...

 

e^ip + 1 = 0

 

the seven most basic components of mathematics of maths all contained in one simple formula, with no real explanation of its existence.

 

 

 

I find it very difficult to concieve of a universe where this just sprung up from nowhere.

 

 

 

One of the most important arguments in the debate about god is the anthropic principle, it work even on a universe scale, that we are here observing this universe purely because this is the sort of universe where life can exist, but it seems to me that this most powerful argumet still doesnt help with mathematics as mathematics is independent from the universe, things true in mathematics would be true no matter what sort of universe you lived in, the language used to describe them would obviously vary dependant on the culture but the threads that bind them are the same, and even in a barren universe mathematics whilst lying dormant would still underlie that universe.

 

 

 

My only conclusion is that there must be some sort of agency involved.

 

 

 

One obvious problem worth mentioning with the idea of an agency is whether or not it too would be subject to mathematics, and im interested in debating this with others.

 

 

 

But the level of beauty I have found in mathematics (try looking up minimal surfaces for some amazing structures, or just remember all those fractal pictures from the eighties) does make me think there is something of an artist behind it all.

 

 

 

Beautiful explanation. I double major in astrophysics and mathematics myself. Thank you for that, honestly, it really inspired me.

[Shinjula]

aw thanks, thats really made my day, i dont often talk in those terms cos im a bit scared of people looking at me funny, but thats really touched me

[Shinjula]

One of the most important result i feel for my life which i have taken on board from mathematics is game theory. The Prisoners Dilemma is a classic puzzle, and in repeating games of it it can be show that the best strategy is a [bleep] for tat one with opportunities for redemption given. i.e. I'm always nice to people from the get go but if people cross me I'll stop being nice to them but occasionally offer them chances to reset and return to us being nice to each other.

 

 

 

This is one reason i cannot believe in the Christian idea of heaven and hell, its against god (maths) we cannot be damned for eternity it is a faulty strategy. Equally this applies to the idea of original sin and the garden of eden scenario, it simply does not match up to game theory and maths and the universe we find ourselves living in.

 

 

 

Symmetry is also important to me which is one reason i cant get along with islam their attitudes to gender are simply unsymmetric.

 

 

 

Buddhism I find terribly sympathetic to how i see the universe and I could easily find myself believing in it, although its rules on bahviour seem too rigid and arbitrary (no eating of meat, no drugs) for me, but the underlying theology are very attractive none the less.

 

 

 

But for the most part i prefer to stay away from ritual and conformity and describe myself only as a seeker of wisdom, I only take that which seems useful and true, if its unproven then it is suspect, and i take care to be sceptical of even my most deeply held beliefs, i hold them but rarely act on them unless it is for a damn good reason that is itself beyond that belief.

[assassin_696]

Shinjula, it's interesting that you should propose belief in a God because of your studies in mathematics, since many other mathematicians also claim to have a similar kind of awe at the beauty of mathematics, myself included. But I don't really see why this shows the evidence for a higher agency.

 

 

 

The example you gave of Euler's identity is indeed remarkable and truly astonishing. But the reason why it should be so is merely a property of the relationships between numbers. It's not arbitary, but neither is it designed. It just is.

 

 

 

There are many mathematicians who call themselves atheists but still believe in some Platonic world of perfect mathematical forms. They don't attribute any existence in the physical sense of the word to this world, it's just an abstraction that helps remove mathematics from the empirical sciences.

[Shinjula]

Shinjula, it's interesting that you should propose belief in a God because of your studies in mathematics, since many other mathematicians also claim to have a similar kind of awe at the beauty of mathematics, myself included. But I don't really see why this shows the evidence for a higher agency.

 

 

 

The example you gave of Euler's identity is indeed remarkable and truly astonishing. But the reason why it should be so is merely a property of the relationships between numbers. It's not arbitary, but neither is it designed. It just is.

 

 

 

That is obviously the other possibility, that it just is the way it is,

 

 

 

There are many mathematicians who call themselves atheists but still believe in some Platonic world of perfect mathematical forms. They don't attribute any existence in the physical sense of the word to this world, it's just an abstraction that helps remove mathematics from the empirical sciences.

 

 

 

It's the level of beauty that I find in math that makes me think of someone behind it all, otherwise, why would it seem beautiful, knowledge of maths has clearly no been around long enough for us to have evolved some sense of aesthetics around it (and I'm a firm believer in evolution), yet there it is. Maths doesnt need to be elegant and beautiful, so how come it is?

 

Pretty much everything in the Universe that scientists have looked at is based on some kind of reason, the sky is blue because the air refracts light at certain wavelengths, light refracts because it slows down in different material and so on, sure there are limits to the knowledge we have found so far but as we continue to look we find more reasons behind things and more questions to ask.

 

But in maths there dont seem to be reasons behind some of these things, either they are the way they are, and thats that, or its because theres something behind them.

 

I'm completely open to the possibility that it just is, but my instincts tell me thats not the case.

 

 

 

There are also other experiences I've had which back up the idea that there is a god, personal experiences of my own which I may go into later on.

 

 

 

I also think it possible that given large portions of the population have had religious experiences that there may be something behind the curtain as it were. There is however large amounts of psychological work done in this area which leads me to believe the people are heavily putting their own spin on it. So I'm looking for commonalities between the religions to try to discover what patterns lay beneath.

 

 

 

And I'll say this again. I'm a mathematician, I do not accept things without proof, it is not proven to me that there is a god, I just reckon there is, which to me is not the same as accepting that there IS a god. However as long as I behave in such a way as to account for both possibilities, it doesnt make a difference.

 

What I said about Game theory for example is just as valid if there is no god as it is if one exists, but if there is a god then I'd like to know what the properties of that god are and mathematics must surely be a good marker of the mettle of any god of this universe.

[Lenticular_J]

Hmm. I daresay, this is what I think God would want. Sciences and religion, side by side. Religion for science. Science for religion.

 

 

 

All we need is a horse and a sunset, and we'll have solved the mysteries of life.

[JtotheP]

To be blunt, I feel that God is real because of a situation in my life that felt like something higher than human saved my life. It just worked out all to well for me to be still alive.

[I_am_Geed]

It's all what people believe in, what their faith is. I, myself, believe in God, yet others do not. That is the way of this world. People can believe exactly what they want to believe in. For example, some of my friends are athiest, wich is fine because thats what they want to believe in, while a lot more of my friends are Agnostic, which is kind of like a religion in the sense that they believe in a higher power, And like my good friend, my girlfriend, and I are Catholic, believing in God. Its all personal opinion.

[Saru Inc]

lol, well it was properties of circles which started it all off for me.

 

The proportion of the radius to the circumference of a diameter is half that of the proportion of radius to the are of a circle, which is 4/3 the proportion of the radius to the volume of a sphere.

 

The question I have is, why?

 

Pi has some really weird properties, and it seems to me that there must be a reason behind it.

 

The only reason I can come up with is that it was designed that way.

 

It clearly isnt a random phenomena, its very precise the way pi crops up in all sorts of places.

 

The only thing I can imagine is that some sort of agency set it up that way.

 

Now I've looked a bit into intelligent design (in a disapproving kinda way) and found it very lacking because of obvious flaws, but those flaws dont seem to crop up in mathematics, there arguments against intelligent design which are nonsense in a biological setting which appear to me to apply here such as that "What use is half an eye" argument, mathematics is not an evolved system it seems to be existing in its entirety without anything to have sprung it into existence, yet it is a highly complex system, where did it come from?

 

It doesnt seem to me to be something we are creating, since we cannot create it to be different than what it is, we arent engineering a creation, when you attemtp to prove a theorem it is either true or false, and thats not decidable by the mathematician.

 

 

 

The clincher for me was the discovery of a formula when i was studying my a-levels which blew my socks away...

 

e^ip + 1 = 0

 

the seven most basic components of mathematics of maths all contained in one simple formula, with no real explanation of its existence.

 

 

 

I find it very difficult to concieve of a universe where this just sprung up from nowhere.

 

 

 

One of the most important arguments in the debate about god is the anthropic principle, it work even on a universe scale, that we are here observing this universe purely because this is the sort of universe where life can exist, but it seems to me that this most powerful argumet still doesnt help with mathematics as mathematics is independent from the universe, things true in mathematics would be true no matter what sort of universe you lived in, the language used to describe them would obviously vary dependant on the culture but the threads that bind them are the same, and even in a barren universe mathematics whilst lying dormant would still underlie that universe.

 

 

 

My only conclusion is that there must be some sort of agency involved.

 

 

 

One obvious problem worth mentioning with the idea of an agency is whether or not it too would be subject to mathematics, and im interested in debating this with others.

 

 

 

But the level of beauty I have found in mathematics (try looking up minimal surfaces for some amazing structures, or just remember all those fractal pictures from the eighties) does make me think there is something of an artist behind it all.

 

 

 

 

 

There's a book called "Mathematics is God being silent." I want to read it, it's on my list of books.

 

And also, I've been over this, but meh. God is testable, andcan be with empiracle evidence, but it's really hard to explain, and I don't think I even fully understand it.

 

And to the quoted poster, God does follow science. In the Bible it says "It is God's glory to hide somwething, and man's glory to discover it." Which is why some Christians are evolutionists, they think that;s what GOd hid. But what I think he means in there, is, he hides ways for us to know he is there, empiracle ways for exmaple. And it glorifies us to find it, because then we can tell others. I also, think that God does use science, but not in the way we think. Note, this is all a personal opinion, but I think that it is ignorant to think this isthe most advanced form of science. Maybe in 100 years or so, we will discover scientifically, a way to prove God. That explains the Big Bang, Evolution, everything. But yes, even I do not know why the Universe is expanding, it does point to the Big Bang Theory, but I'm not sure....

[D Jay99]

God is testable, andcan be with empiracle evidence, but it's really hard to explain, and I don't think I even fully understand it.

 

What?

 

 

 

About the mathematics, those things fitting exactly together. Let's not forget humans came up with the whole mathematics, numbers 1-9, that genious who came up with the 0, etc.

[Saru Inc]

Didn't I just say it was an opinion? Yes, I did.

[D Jay99]

Didn't I just say it was an opinion? Yes, I did.

 

You can't have the opinion that something is testable, really. You can think it is, but if there's no tests that prove it, it's not testable.

[Orpheus]

Honestly, how we can have 115 pages of back and forth, I wouldn't know. But I guess I'll throw in my $0.02.

 

 

 

God doesn't exist, there's no logical proof that he exists. Give me sufficient physical proof of it's existence, then I'll talk more on the subject.

[Zierro]

Honestly, how we can have 115 pages of back and forth, I wouldn't know. But I guess I'll throw in my $0.02.

 

 

 

God doesn't exist, there's no logical proof that he exists. Give me sufficient physical proof of it's existence, then I'll talk more on the subject.

 

 

 

That same exact rationale can be used to show that he can't be "proven" false either.

[Lateralus]

Honestly, how we can have 115 pages of back and forth, I wouldn't know. But I guess I'll throw in my $0.02.

 

 

 

God doesn't exist, there's no logical proof that he exists. Give me sufficient physical proof of it's existence, then I'll talk more on the subject.

 

 

 

That same exact rationale can be used to show that he can't be "proven" false either.

 

 

 

That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed the same way.

[Zierro]

Exactly, that was my point. And saying "God does not exist" is an assertion.

[Lateralus]

Exactly, that was my point. And saying "God does not exist" is an assertion.

 

 

 

I realise that's what he said, but when people say that it's pretty obvious they mean (or should mean) "there's no evidence that God exists", which he did go on to say.

[Zierro]

So...

 

 

 

"God doesn't exist" is a justifiable statement because of the fact that there is no evidence for him.

 

 

 

But...

 

 

 

"God does exist" isn't a justifiable statement even after the fact that there is no evidence against him?

 

 

 

Honestly, am I the only one in the world who sees this as a two-way street? :|

[Lateralus]

So...

 

 

 

"God doesn't exist" is a justifiable statement because of the fact that there is no evidence for him.

 

 

 

But...

 

 

 

"God does exist" isn't a justifiable statement because of the fact that there is no evidence against him?

 

 

 

Honestly, am I the only one in the world who sees this as a two-way street? :|

 

 

 

The logic for asserting anything should go: Premise, proof, conclusion. If there's no proof for the premise then you can dismiss it. You don't have to prove that god doesn't exist because that is the default position. The idea of god came after the default position of no god.