Comment

Comment by Jay Stevens on September 23, 2012 at 8:11am

The picture of all religions as containing illogical or non-analytic elements  does seem a bit of a red herring.  I am a Christian and believe it to be an EXTREMELY logical system.  Simply because you and I differ in our interpretation of the available data, does NOT mean that my approach is illogical.  There is nothing logically inconsistent about orthodox Christianity.  It is a red-herring and a misuse of the term to call it illogical.  

"Illogical" is to say:  

both A and NOT A are true.

Orthodox Christianity does nothing of the sort.  Would be intensely interested in any posts that can point out elements of Christianity that are not logical.

Comment by Gerhard Furter on January 26, 2012 at 5:30am

I am an avid Christian, with beliefs that have caused me some problems, in the past, with more traditional schools of thought. I support the idea posed here that analysts will whittle away at the idiocies and waterless arguments posed by most blind-faith followers, something I myself have a very personal problem with, but I also pose this argument: analysts study chaos and derive perspectives of order from it. This ability stems from a discipline based on objectivity, in that we never bias our result sets towards a specific argument, but rather derive the argument from the path that the data leads us on. My hope is that the existence of God will be proven by such means, and that analytics and science will eventually, instead of subjectively attempting to disprove His existence, offer final an conclusive testament to a Higher Being. If science and math are to be used as weapons to disprove the existence of God, then make it a fair fight, and do so objectively, as we may find that the result we derive may very well end up proving the very fact that we are trying to deny.

Comment by Amy on January 24, 2012 at 6:49pm

Another interesting thought, for those who believe in a very traditional version of God: God is responsible for creating chaos, non-randomness, and changes, and occasionally accidents (meteorite killing dinosaurs) -- all things that make human beings worried. In short, God could be the bad guy, instilling painful changes to species (including humans!) in order to achieve her goal of improving the Universe. Without a superpower to create chaos and change, the Universe would be totally homogeneous, without stars, planets and life.

On a different note, Mathematology can be viewed as a no-God religion, a traditional religion or anything including atheism depending on how you define God(s). In many ways, it is a highly abstract, meta-religion and all God-based religions are a particular case of Mathematology. Should you ask me what is my religion, my answer would be: I am simultaneously and sincerely Jewish, Mathematologist, Buddhist, Atheist, Catholic and Muslim, all at the same time. If you don't see how mathematology is the mother of all religions including atheism, fell free to contact me for further explanations.

Comment by Fateh BEKIOUA on January 24, 2012 at 7:48am

How to prove analytically that god exists, maybe this debate can help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exk8jEH7vng&feature=related

Comment by Davide Imperati on January 23, 2012 at 8:50am

In the christian bible (Gen 1:1) we read:

In the beginning (=0)

God  (=1)

created the heaven and the earth. (1+1=2)

It looks like the principle of induction.

In the taoism we can find:

Tao gives birth to one,

One gives birth to two,

Two gives birth to three,

Three gives birth to ten thousand beings.

Ten thousand beings carry yin on their backs and embrace yang in their front,

Blending these two vital breaths to attain harmony."

-- from chapter 42, E. Chen (tr.)

Which is a kind of similar.

An other interesting principle can be found in the Mahabharata, which is about 5000 ears old.

Unfortunately I do not have the reference at hand.

From school I cn still remember part of the Proof of the existence of God by Tomaso d'Aquino, which are a beautiful example analytic process (take the assumptions for granted and everything is perfect)

With a bit of fantasy one can find maths everywhere. I believe it lays in the human aptitude to model reality and find what we are searching independently if it exist or not.

In science I'm still trying to understand the power of montecarlo methods and what is actually the deep meaning of randomness.

SO I think a bit of "religiousness" does not hurt as long as it concerns the life of ppl and not the development of models :D

But that's just my opinion, do not take is as a faith.

Comment by David Neeley on January 22, 2012 at 5:36pm

According to dictionary.com, the definition of analytical is "pertaining to or proceeding from analysis." So, in my opinion, any person that has carefully considered their worldview can be considered "analytical" in that regard. I am a Christian, and I know that I have done so, as have many, many other religious people.

The description of God that you present is a red herring. I can't speak for any other faiths, but that is certainly not close to the belief of any thoughtful Christian.

It seems to me that you can find the narrow-minded zealots or the intellectually lazy easily among both religious and irreligious people.

Comment by Adelino on January 22, 2012 at 1:05pm

The basic premise of this post falls under the fallacy of hasty generalization: if mathematicians use logic for most of their activities, they must also follow some religious system that is beholden to logic. This can easily be seen if you consider that if mathematics is a mental activity and so is fear and anger and we don't espouse that mathematicians do away with these emotions simply because they are "illogical". 

Maybe theistic religion is irrelevant not because it fails to conform to logic but because it is a dangerous fantasy that tends to overreach its bounds?