Comparing science and religion. Sigh. Such idiocy can only be attributed to higher education. You have to go to college to be able to say something as stupid as God is as real as Math.
You can't juxtapose the existence of God with independent axioms without which the whole system would collapse, general laws that are
necessarily true. For example, is the statement "a unicorn is a horse with a single horn growing out of its forehead" a true statement?
If two parallel lines ever intersected in euclidean geometry, the whole system would fall apart. I then give religious whackjobs an out by saying there is no way to derive such necessarily true axioms analytically. This does not mean I'm talking about the TRUTH </reverb>, or what Kant would call the thing-in-itself, as that's an entirely different debate. I'm simply saying that there are general laws in the realm of abstract entities which are necessarily true, and are not analytic. where do they come from? how do we know about them? Is it god? Is it THE FORCE?
The problem with reducing the language of logic to mundane language is that all human languages are architectures designed to suit an agenda (JEAH FOUCALT). Every word has hidden connotations, so mundane definitions are always slippery.
For instance: what do you mean by "real"? Do you mean, materially observable in the phenomenal world by human senses? What are the necessary prerequisites for "existence"? Because i could technically say a unicorn exists as soon as i imagine it.
Basically, the argument goes as follows:
God is as real as math
Math is real
God is real.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_Tollens
All i know is that necessarily true statements have an "existence" outside of abstraction. Is ALL truth outside abstraction? Dunno. If i knew that, you really think I'd be sitting here posting on a ff message board?
Math is an abstract concept. It's material manifestations are 1) theoretically infinite and 2) imperfect avatars of the abstract concept itself.
The ability of the human mind to grasp and manipulate abstract concepts does not prove the existence of god. It's proof the human mind exists, or at least evidence in that direction. Nothing more.
If you are going to make the case that god is as real as the abstract concept of a triangle you've torpedoed yourself again. Assuming the "math god" argument is correct, god is reduced to a figment of your imagination, existing only as much as an hallucination, and just as powerless.
No religions nor churches are warranted by this shadow of a god. He's totally useless as well: maths have myriad uses to architects, the global economy, well basically everything around us, for instance. Math is such a wide concept it's incredible. Compared to the uses one might have for an imaginary friend. Not many. It may even belie burgeoning mental unwellness.
I don't tolerate the idea that there is still room for "personal belief." As the decades have come and gone science has made many advances, constantly taking ground from religion. Old questions that religion has satisfied for thousands of years are constantly being taken over by science, and the new, scientific answers have always made the old religious answers seem so primitive, so embarassing, we stand back and ask ourselves if it was possible that such things were ever believed.
It is true that science has not yet answered every single question with the utmost certainty. However this reduces theists to frightened children cowering in foxholes, terrified of the inevitable revelations of the (Ides of) march of science. What religious beliefs they had yesterday they cannot have today. What religious beliefs they stubbornly cling to today they will be unable to bear with a straight face tomorrow. This is the dynamic between religion and science. This is the theme of the debate, like the rock music that plays when an enormous wrestler enters the arena.
I must admire the valor of the die hard theists against an unstoppable, overwhelming enemy. However their stubbornness is self-destructive. The longer they cling to faith long proven demonstrably false the more irrelevant and evolutionarily unfit to survive they become.
No gods, just us. People weren't told to do anything by god, they're just deluded fanatics. Crazy people don't make something false magically true by sheer force of belief.
