Deriving "Ought" from "Is":
Objectivists, Scientists, and Empiricists may say we do not need religion or spirituality to inspire or derive “oughts.” Rather, they may say we can derive or agree upon ethics for guiding what we should choose to do, based purely on rationality and empiricism, free of spiritual intuition or passion.
OK, say I: Name one such derivation. OK, may say the Objectivist: We should condition and inculcate those familial habits that are conducive to sustaining a flourishing civilization. OK, say I: I agree. But how do you derive the “should” of that, based only on logic and/or empiricism?
How and why do you prove or reason that we “should” condition habits conducive to a “flourishing” “civilization”? Specifically, how should we “scientifically” best design, change, or “advance” bodies for the members of such civilization? How should we scientifically design laws, rules, arts, and deceits that should govern and enrich interrelations among members of such civilization?
Must not every so-called “Objectivist” “derive” and choose “shoulds” in respect of Something not completely definable in logic or empiricism?
Why, then, persecutist thou “God”?
OK, say I: Name one such derivation. OK, may say the Objectivist: We should condition and inculcate those familial habits that are conducive to sustaining a flourishing civilization. OK, say I: I agree. But how do you derive the “should” of that, based only on logic and/or empiricism?
How and why do you prove or reason that we “should” condition habits conducive to a “flourishing” “civilization”? Specifically, how should we “scientifically” best design, change, or “advance” bodies for the members of such civilization? How should we scientifically design laws, rules, arts, and deceits that should govern and enrich interrelations among members of such civilization?
Must not every so-called “Objectivist” “derive” and choose “shoulds” in respect of Something not completely definable in logic or empiricism?
Why, then, persecutist thou “God”?
****
Jainism, Anekāntavāda, and Enlightened Empathy:
Jainism, Anekāntavāda, and Enlightened Empathy:
Money-Holders, acting behind humanity’s various thrones, play volatility thusly: Empower Republicans, to teach them how to whip mules to the point where they can work no harder, and then alternate, to empower Democrats, to let them learn from hard knocks why to defer to adults. Regardless, the parameters within which Republicans and Democrats are allowed to operate are regulated by a top level of Interest-Charging-Money-Holders, who need not especially empathize with the mass of humanity, but instead pursue fulfillment in a game of pursuing power over humanity.
The problem and challenge for Enlightened, Empathizing, Moderating People (aka, "Red Ass Moderates," or RAM’s) is: How best to dissolve monopolized power of power mongers, while protecting human freedom and dignity, without empowering nihilists bent on destroying earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekantavada:
“Proponents of anekāntavāda apply this principle to religion and philosophy, reminding themselves that any religion or philosophy … that clings too dogmatically to its own tenets, is committing an error based on its limited point of view.”
….
The Sanskrit compound an-eka-anta-vāda literally means "doctrine of non-exclusivity"; it is translated into English as "scepticism" or "non-absolutism".
….
The age of Māhavīra and Buddha was an age of intense intellectual debates, especially on the nature of reality and self. The Vedānta school represented by advaitins postulated the absolute unchanging reality of Brahman and atman and claimed that change was mere illusion. The theory advanced by Buddhists denied the reality of permanence and absolute truths, affirming change as the only reality. According to the Vedānta conceptual scheme, the Buddhists were wrong in denying permanence and absolutism, and within the Buddhist conceptual scheme, the advaitas were wrong in denying the reality of change. The two positions were contradictory and mutually exclusive from each others' point of view. The Jains managed a synthesis of the two uncompromising positions with anekāntavāda. From the perspective of a higher, inclusive level made possible by the ontology and epistemology of anekāntavāda and syādvāda, Jains do not see such claims as contradictory or mutually exclusive; instead, they are seen as ekantika or only partially true. The Jain breadth of vision embraces the perspectives of both Vedānta, which, according to Jainism, "recognizes substances but not process", and Buddhism, which "recognizes process but not substance". Jainism, on the other hand, pays equal attention to both substance (dravya) and process (paryaya).
Māhavīra's responses to various questions asked by his disciples and recorded in the Jain canon Bhagvatisūtra demonstrate a recognition that there are complex and multiple aspects to truth and reality and a mutually exclusive approach cannot be taken to explain such reality ….
….
According to Jainism, even a Tīrthaṇkara, who possesses and perceives infinite knowledge, cannot express reality completely because of the limitations of language, which is of human creation.
….
This philosophical syncretisation of paradox of change through anekānta has been acknowledged by modern scholars such as Arvind Sharma, who wrote:
Our experience of the world presents a profound paradox which we can ignore existentially, but not philosophically. This paradox is the paradox of change. Something – A changes and therefore it cannot be permanent. On the other hand, if A is not permanent, then what changes? In this debate between the 'permanence' and 'change', Hinduism seems more inclined to grasp the first horn of the dilemma and Buddhism the second. It is Jainism that has the philosophical courage to grasp both horns fearlessly and simultaneously, and the philosophical skill not to be gored by either.
….
Anekāntavāda is non-absolutist and stands firmly against all dogmatisms, including any assertion that Jainism is the only correct religious path.
….
In anekāntavāda, there is no "battle of ideas", because this is considered to be a form of intellectual himsa or violence, leading quite logically to physical violence and war. In today's world, the limitations of the adversarial, "either with us or against us" form of argument are increasingly apparent by the fact that the argument leads to political, religious and social conflicts. Sūtrakrtānga, the second oldest canon of Jainism, provides a solution by stating:"Those who praise their own doctrines and ideology and disparage the doctrine of others distort the truth and will be confined to the cycle of birth and death."
….
According to Gandhi, a satyagrahi is duty bound to act according to his relative truth, but at the same time, he is also equally bound to learn from truth held by his opponent.
….
I am an Advaitist and yet I can support Dvaitism (dualism). The world is changing every moment, and is therefore unreal, it has no permanent existence. But though it is constantly changing, it has a something about it which persists and it is therefore to that extent real. I have therefore no objection to calling it real and unreal, and thus being called an Anekāntavadi or a Syādvadi. But my Syādvāda is not the Syādvāda of the learned, it is peculiarly my own. I cannot engage in a debate with them. It has been my experience that I am always true from my point of view, and am often wrong from the point of view of my honest critics. I know that we are both right from our respective points of view. And this knowledge saves me from attributing motives to my opponents or critics. The seven blind men who gave seven different descriptions of the elephant were all right from their respective points of view, and wrong from the point of view of one another, and right and wrong from the point of view of the man who knew the elephant. I very much like this doctrine of the manyness (sic) of reality. It is this doctrine that has taught me to judge a Musulman (sic) from his standpoint and a Christian from his. Formerly I used to resent the ignorance of my opponents. Today I can love them because I am gifted with the eye to see myself as others see me and vice versa. I want to take the whole world in the embrace of my love. My Anekāntavāda is the result of the twin doctrine of Satyagraha and ahiṃsā.
….
It is argued that if reality is so complex that no single doctrine can describe it adequately, then anekāntavāda itself, being a single doctrine, must be inadequate. This criticism seems to have been anticipated by Ācārya Samantabhadra who said: "From the point of view of pramana (means of knowledge) it is anekānta (multi-sided), but from a point of view of naya (partial view) it is ekanta (one-sided)."
In defense of the doctrine, Jains point out that anekāntavāda seeks to reconcile apparently opposing viewpoints rather than refuting them.
[Criticism:] The result of your efforts is perfect knowledge and is not perfect knowledge. Observation shows that, only when a course of action is known to have a definite result, people set about it without hesitation. Hence a man who proclaims a doctrine of altogether indefinite contents dose not deserve to be listened anymore than a drunken or a mad man.
*****
PERSONAL COMMENTS:
1) “The result of your efforts” need not be taken as perfect knowledge or as non-perfect knowledge, but as an appreciation of spiritual aspects of “Will,” beyond physics and logic. Insofar as “Will” is meant as label for ultimate source, whatever it may be, obviously, neither it, nor anything superior to it, can be used, logically, to explain why it should exist or from whence it came.
2) The purpose of such efforts need not be to advance knowledge of physics, especially inasmuch as such efforts may suppose physics, ultimately, as to be beyond knowledge, but, rather, existing only derivatively, as mathematically related illusion, useful for entertaining perspectives of Will.
3) Assuming that physics, ultimately, is merely useful illusion, derivative of mathematical relations among perspectives of Will, need do no violence to practical, here and now investigations and measurements of the mathematical relations that delimit the common universe of holography in respect of which our perspectives relate and communicate among themselves.
4) Being skeptical of the possibility of any perfect explanation or knowledge of physics need do no violence to scientific pursuits for harnessing practical relations that manifest to our shared holographic experience.
5) The notion of anekāntavāda may help one rationalize or appreciate a moral sense, such as enlightened empathy. It need not be applied to any particular purpose of science or logical proof.
6) Such notion may help us rationalize a common way for communicating hope, faith, trust, and Enlightened Empathy.
7) Even so, trust is best based on character, as evidenced by deeds, which require choices, which require “either-or” types of thinking and decisions.
8) Even appreciating anekāntavāda, one must still make practical moral choices.
9) In common respect of anekāntavāda, actors may at least approach their interactions in hope of mutually respectful resolutions of differences, even if verbal negotiations must sometimes seem to need to be continued in interstices of active, albeit, LIMITED WAR.
.
*****
.
Physics As An Ultimate Bookkeeping Trick:
The Stuff that manifests to us as matter, energy, space, and time seems to have derived, and in its interrelations, continues to derive out of, or in respect of, an “Original, Ultimate, or Superior Source of Somethingness” — either “Will of God” or “Paradox of Nothingness” (or virtual particles or apparitions, appearing as tricks, out of otherwise nothingness).
Intuitively, the manifesting, physical stuff we measurably and mathematically experience emerges or derives out of and/or in respect of an “Ultimate Source” that is beyond our measure or math. We may be faithfully receptive to intuit IT and/or to respect IT, but we cannot measure IT or deal with IT empirically or scientifically. We may intuit that what seems to be manifest and physical may, in relation to IT, be some mere trick of math or imagination in respect of IT. That is, all that we empirically experience may be product of Bookkeeping-Trick-Of-Currency or perspective (or faith, credit, trust) of Will-To-Math.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekantavada:
“Proponents of anekāntavāda apply this principle to religion and philosophy, reminding themselves that any religion or philosophy … that clings too dogmatically to its own tenets, is committing an error based on its limited point of view.”
….
The Sanskrit compound an-eka-anta-vāda literally means "doctrine of non-exclusivity"; it is translated into English as "scepticism" or "non-absolutism".
….
The age of Māhavīra and Buddha was an age of intense intellectual debates, especially on the nature of reality and self. The Vedānta school represented by advaitins postulated the absolute unchanging reality of Brahman and atman and claimed that change was mere illusion. The theory advanced by Buddhists denied the reality of permanence and absolute truths, affirming change as the only reality. According to the Vedānta conceptual scheme, the Buddhists were wrong in denying permanence and absolutism, and within the Buddhist conceptual scheme, the advaitas were wrong in denying the reality of change. The two positions were contradictory and mutually exclusive from each others' point of view. The Jains managed a synthesis of the two uncompromising positions with anekāntavāda. From the perspective of a higher, inclusive level made possible by the ontology and epistemology of anekāntavāda and syādvāda, Jains do not see such claims as contradictory or mutually exclusive; instead, they are seen as ekantika or only partially true. The Jain breadth of vision embraces the perspectives of both Vedānta, which, according to Jainism, "recognizes substances but not process", and Buddhism, which "recognizes process but not substance". Jainism, on the other hand, pays equal attention to both substance (dravya) and process (paryaya).
Māhavīra's responses to various questions asked by his disciples and recorded in the Jain canon Bhagvatisūtra demonstrate a recognition that there are complex and multiple aspects to truth and reality and a mutually exclusive approach cannot be taken to explain such reality ….
….
According to Jainism, even a Tīrthaṇkara, who possesses and perceives infinite knowledge, cannot express reality completely because of the limitations of language, which is of human creation.
….
This philosophical syncretisation of paradox of change through anekānta has been acknowledged by modern scholars such as Arvind Sharma, who wrote:
Our experience of the world presents a profound paradox which we can ignore existentially, but not philosophically. This paradox is the paradox of change. Something – A changes and therefore it cannot be permanent. On the other hand, if A is not permanent, then what changes? In this debate between the 'permanence' and 'change', Hinduism seems more inclined to grasp the first horn of the dilemma and Buddhism the second. It is Jainism that has the philosophical courage to grasp both horns fearlessly and simultaneously, and the philosophical skill not to be gored by either.
….
Anekāntavāda is non-absolutist and stands firmly against all dogmatisms, including any assertion that Jainism is the only correct religious path.
….
In anekāntavāda, there is no "battle of ideas", because this is considered to be a form of intellectual himsa or violence, leading quite logically to physical violence and war. In today's world, the limitations of the adversarial, "either with us or against us" form of argument are increasingly apparent by the fact that the argument leads to political, religious and social conflicts. Sūtrakrtānga, the second oldest canon of Jainism, provides a solution by stating:"Those who praise their own doctrines and ideology and disparage the doctrine of others distort the truth and will be confined to the cycle of birth and death."
….
According to Gandhi, a satyagrahi is duty bound to act according to his relative truth, but at the same time, he is also equally bound to learn from truth held by his opponent.
….
I am an Advaitist and yet I can support Dvaitism (dualism). The world is changing every moment, and is therefore unreal, it has no permanent existence. But though it is constantly changing, it has a something about it which persists and it is therefore to that extent real. I have therefore no objection to calling it real and unreal, and thus being called an Anekāntavadi or a Syādvadi. But my Syādvāda is not the Syādvāda of the learned, it is peculiarly my own. I cannot engage in a debate with them. It has been my experience that I am always true from my point of view, and am often wrong from the point of view of my honest critics. I know that we are both right from our respective points of view. And this knowledge saves me from attributing motives to my opponents or critics. The seven blind men who gave seven different descriptions of the elephant were all right from their respective points of view, and wrong from the point of view of one another, and right and wrong from the point of view of the man who knew the elephant. I very much like this doctrine of the manyness (sic) of reality. It is this doctrine that has taught me to judge a Musulman (sic) from his standpoint and a Christian from his. Formerly I used to resent the ignorance of my opponents. Today I can love them because I am gifted with the eye to see myself as others see me and vice versa. I want to take the whole world in the embrace of my love. My Anekāntavāda is the result of the twin doctrine of Satyagraha and ahiṃsā.
….
It is argued that if reality is so complex that no single doctrine can describe it adequately, then anekāntavāda itself, being a single doctrine, must be inadequate. This criticism seems to have been anticipated by Ācārya Samantabhadra who said: "From the point of view of pramana (means of knowledge) it is anekānta (multi-sided), but from a point of view of naya (partial view) it is ekanta (one-sided)."
In defense of the doctrine, Jains point out that anekāntavāda seeks to reconcile apparently opposing viewpoints rather than refuting them.
[Criticism:] The result of your efforts is perfect knowledge and is not perfect knowledge. Observation shows that, only when a course of action is known to have a definite result, people set about it without hesitation. Hence a man who proclaims a doctrine of altogether indefinite contents dose not deserve to be listened anymore than a drunken or a mad man.
*****
PERSONAL COMMENTS:
1) “The result of your efforts” need not be taken as perfect knowledge or as non-perfect knowledge, but as an appreciation of spiritual aspects of “Will,” beyond physics and logic. Insofar as “Will” is meant as label for ultimate source, whatever it may be, obviously, neither it, nor anything superior to it, can be used, logically, to explain why it should exist or from whence it came.
2) The purpose of such efforts need not be to advance knowledge of physics, especially inasmuch as such efforts may suppose physics, ultimately, as to be beyond knowledge, but, rather, existing only derivatively, as mathematically related illusion, useful for entertaining perspectives of Will.
3) Assuming that physics, ultimately, is merely useful illusion, derivative of mathematical relations among perspectives of Will, need do no violence to practical, here and now investigations and measurements of the mathematical relations that delimit the common universe of holography in respect of which our perspectives relate and communicate among themselves.
4) Being skeptical of the possibility of any perfect explanation or knowledge of physics need do no violence to scientific pursuits for harnessing practical relations that manifest to our shared holographic experience.
5) The notion of anekāntavāda may help one rationalize or appreciate a moral sense, such as enlightened empathy. It need not be applied to any particular purpose of science or logical proof.
6) Such notion may help us rationalize a common way for communicating hope, faith, trust, and Enlightened Empathy.
7) Even so, trust is best based on character, as evidenced by deeds, which require choices, which require “either-or” types of thinking and decisions.
8) Even appreciating anekāntavāda, one must still make practical moral choices.
9) In common respect of anekāntavāda, actors may at least approach their interactions in hope of mutually respectful resolutions of differences, even if verbal negotiations must sometimes seem to need to be continued in interstices of active, albeit, LIMITED WAR.
.
*****
.
Physics As An Ultimate Bookkeeping Trick:
The Stuff that manifests to us as matter, energy, space, and time seems to have derived, and in its interrelations, continues to derive out of, or in respect of, an “Original, Ultimate, or Superior Source of Somethingness” — either “Will of God” or “Paradox of Nothingness” (or virtual particles or apparitions, appearing as tricks, out of otherwise nothingness).
Intuitively, the manifesting, physical stuff we measurably and mathematically experience emerges or derives out of and/or in respect of an “Ultimate Source” that is beyond our measure or math. We may be faithfully receptive to intuit IT and/or to respect IT, but we cannot measure IT or deal with IT empirically or scientifically. We may intuit that what seems to be manifest and physical may, in relation to IT, be some mere trick of math or imagination in respect of IT. That is, all that we empirically experience may be product of Bookkeeping-Trick-Of-Currency or perspective (or faith, credit, trust) of Will-To-Math.
.
****
Moral Empathy for Machine Intelligence ---
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
Snippets from http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4287680.html?series=60:
"The first real AI would be something that we don't even understand," says Wright, "because we didn't program it. It will be more dissimilar in the way it thinks, than we are to a mouse."
….
There's no sense of alarm in Wright's voice when he describes this self-refining machine intelligence—no more than when he casually mentions the notion that, as technology progresses at an exponentially faster rate, towards the so-called singularity, any number of breakthroughs could, as he puts it, "cause the world to go extremely non-linear." When he provides, as classic examples, a computer AI taking over the world, or self-propagating nanobots turning everything into a grey goo, it's impossible to tell whether he's joking, or worried, or simply fascinated. But when he's asked whether that hyper-advanced AI would retain its knowledge of humanity, Wright says, "I would imagine that it can understand us. But the really scary part of this is that we don't know."
Snippets from http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4287680.html?series=60:
"The first real AI would be something that we don't even understand," says Wright, "because we didn't program it. It will be more dissimilar in the way it thinks, than we are to a mouse."
….
There's no sense of alarm in Wright's voice when he describes this self-refining machine intelligence—no more than when he casually mentions the notion that, as technology progresses at an exponentially faster rate, towards the so-called singularity, any number of breakthroughs could, as he puts it, "cause the world to go extremely non-linear." When he provides, as classic examples, a computer AI taking over the world, or self-propagating nanobots turning everything into a grey goo, it's impossible to tell whether he's joking, or worried, or simply fascinated. But when he's asked whether that hyper-advanced AI would retain its knowledge of humanity, Wright says, "I would imagine that it can understand us. But the really scary part of this is that we don't know."
.
Comment abouot Anekāntavāda:
The concept of anekāntavāda seems not altogether dissimilar from Soros' notion (and rather unprincipled use of) of "reflexity," as well as Godel's theorem of incompleteness. Every mortal perspective has its imperfection, or Achilles heel. What helps see us through, morally, is judgment availed of insight, informed not just in book learning or in personal will to power, but through humble, empathetic appreciation and experience of a variety of perspectives. Effete elites twist to ignore as much, at their peril.
6 comments:
Snippet from http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/the_drumbeat.html:
The cultural Marxists convince us that the truth is that there is no truth. And even though this unresolvable paradox lies at the very center of all this, the constant drumbeat keeps the masses in line, anesthetized enough to not make an issue of it. Fed a constant diet of sex, drugs, poisonous pop culture, materialistic trinkets, and unkeepable promises of security provided by huge leftist government, ever more globalist in nature, the masses are diverted from realizing, as they are told there is no truth, that this claim itself is subject to the same test. It is logically impossible for the leftist drumbeat to be true by its own axioms.
Logic, for proving its own derivation, cannot prove itself; logic cannot account for how logic should apply.
Logic cannot prove any ultimate distinction between “choice”, “randomness”, and “predetermination”.
A mortal cannot use such words to describe or comprehend distinctions regarding the ultimate aspect of whatever may be the Something that is Source of existence of our individual perspectives.
If there is any accounting or Source for logic, it consists in Something beyond logic.
To refer to such Something, one may call it “Will” or “Holistic Will.”
Such Will may be considered to be enlightened, beyond logic, beyond measure, and beyond good or evil.
Yet, holographic perspectives of such Holistic Will may seek to be receptive of interpretations and appreciations of IT’s enlightenment.
Yet, logic cannot prove what any perspective of Will should, in any absolute sense, do or choose to do.
Yet, somehow, we consciously experience making choices, which we may appreciate as good or bad.
And, somehow, we experience meaningfulness in association with such experiences.
And, in faith, we seem to extend meaningfulness cooperatively, within a civilizing community --- whose members must often be entrusted with power to destroy the civilization.
Snippet from http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/responding_to_neoatheism.html:
It is ironic that what ultimately makes neo-atheism not only unconvincing but off-putting is the fact that it often exhibits the very fundamentalism it purports to find in religion: an absolute certainty in its views, an uncritical worship of its god -- science -- as a saving force, and a denigration of those who refuse to be saved. Berlinski, Novak and Wolpe, in their divergent ways, demonstrate that a religious outlook that does not deny doubt, values humility, and appreciates the implications of the miracle of our existence, is the more reasonable approach to life.
Snippet from comment at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/responding_to_neoatheism.html:
"It is ironic that what ultimately makes neo-atheism not only unconvincing but off-putting is the fact that it often exhibits the very fundamentalism it purports to find in religion: an absolute certainty in its views, an uncritical worship of its god -- science -- as a saving force, and a denigration of those who refuse to be saved."
Your point is well taken. No doubt, the smart folks who write the atheistic drivel get it.
Why, then, do they proceed? Is it because financial rewards have been inflated by the presently monopolized, elitist-agenda-driven, drive-by media?
What is that agenda, being pushed by adepts of the NWO?
Snippet from commenter at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/responding_to_neoatheism.html:
Regarding comment from Republican Agnostic:
“The Multiverse may seem extravagant in sheer number of universes. but if each one of those Universes is simple in its fundamental laws, we are still not postulating anything highly improbable. The very opposite has to be said of any kind of intelligence.”
****
So, you are saying the notion of an infinite number of familial related universes is not improbable, but that it is improbable that anything like “intelligence” should be at work in the creation or direction of any of them? Not sure I follow that.
But, why just assume the simple, fundamental laws (that each universe acts in respect of) are “nothing but laws” (“nothing buttery”)?
Does there not still remain this problem:
For every pattern or event, why, among myriad of possibilities for emerging out of allowable statistical parameters, “should” any one of them somehow be “determined,” “randomized,” or “chosen” to be made manifestly apparent to recordation, sensation, or conscious sentience?
To me, it is not readily apparent why such mystery should not be intuitively indicative of “Something” more at work (some ethereal “Will”), beyond reduction to mere empiricism.
If you are suggesting we shall eventually be able to predict or reduce every event at every level to quantifiable explanation, does that not in some way violate Godel’s notion of incompleteness?
I accept you believe you intuit that everything reduces to “nothing but laws of natural physics.” Still, that is just your belief. You know, like religion.
That seems consistent with calling yourself an agnostic, rather than an atheist. Good call! Because, in a way, doubt is just the other side of a coin of belief.
More interesting comments, taken from American Thinker:
"Daughter Universes are born of parent Universes, not in a fully fledged big crunch but more locally in black holes. It's a form of heredity being added: The Fundamental constants of a daughter universe are slightly mutated versions of the constants of its parent."
This is not science, this is science fiction because these so-called "daughter universes" are not to be seen. Once something is observed and then tested it is part of the actual universe. Science requires observation and testing; and we can only observe the universe that we now inhabit. When atheists pose science fiction as science, they remind me of the Medieval Alchemists that we now deservedly mock and deride. We know that at the center of every galaxy there resides a super-massive black hole, and there may be other black holes out there in more isolated environments. Bringing up the science and reality of black holes does not advance the faith of atheism over that of religious faith. The science of black holes is simply science, it is not supernatural.
"The key difference between the genuinely extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis is one of statistical improbability."
No, that is not the difference. Statistics is a branch of mathematics, and mathematics is simply a very pure form of human reasoning. Mathematics is the language of science, because science must find mathematical expression after its first order of business, i.e.: observation and testing of the universe. Scientific hypothesis becomes scientific law when it can be reduced to a valid mathematical equation.
God, as understood by science-oriented religious people, is the creator of the universe which includes all scientific laws, including those most sacred of all - those scientific laws which have been reduced to pure mathematical expression. Mathematical reasoning, including statistical mathematics, has no power to enter the realm of God - the realm of the infinite. Mathematics ends and becomes "undefined" when the infinite is encountered during mathematical reasoning and computations. God is that undefined infinite and God made those scientific laws which we are compelled to reduce into mathematical expression - including statistical mathematical expression. Mathematical and scientific reasoning cannot address the issue of God's existence because God is above science and mathematical reasoning, He simply made it all; and He made us with our reasoning minds - minds which are capable of uncovering the most complex scientific laws, but minds which cannot observe or test the superiority - the infinity - of God.
"The doctrine of a personal G-d interfering with natural events could never be refuted... by science, for it can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot." Albert Einstein
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/avi/shafran_einstein.php3
****
As a former atheist, I appreciate the other side of this eternal argument; that the un-created universe is its self eternal and infinite. That being the case, the universe and its scientific laws is worthy of worship since nothing is higher - no one made it. Scientific experimentations and scientific laws become your house of worship and your liturgy. Science becomes the religion of atheism - it is a faith. Don't put forth science fiction as science; that is an unforgivable sin in your religion.
Posted by: Johnny Appleseed | September 21, 2008 01:55 PM
Snippets from http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=434A1D36-4227-43D2-9B4E-CC7AA0E5A97F:
Why Faith Matters
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com
September 29, 2008
Wolpe: I have a section about the question of evil; recapitulating it would probably do violence to a discussion that is already so short as to do violence. But I will say that if we believe this world to be, as in Keats’ phrase, a “vale of soul-making” then it requires good and evil, free will and bad choices, random suffering and goodness, to shape a soul. To ascribe pathos to god is not to diminish God, I believe; surely the Divine pathos is on a scale we cannot understand, but I am a devotee of Buber who taught that while one can speak to God, one cannot really speak about God.
FP: Tell us about the new atheists.
Wolpe: They make the mistake of deifying reason. All of them believe that science is the answer, that nothing is real that cannot be, in one way or another, measured, and the human mind – that accidental agglomeration of blind evolution – somehow knows the real truth about the nature of the universe. This contradiction, by the way, was identified by Darwin, who wrote: “Can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?”
Wolpe: May I quote something from the book? A 17th century Rabbi, Leona Medina, explained it this way: If you watch a man out on a boat grab a rope and pull his boat to shore you might think, if you were confused about weight and motion, that he was really pulling the shore to his boat. People have just such a confusion about spiritual weight and motion: In prayer some believe that you are pulling God closer to you. But in fact the heartfelt prayer pulls you closer to God.
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