On 04 Apr 2014, at 19:05, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
On 04 Apr 2014, at 11:44, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 4 April 2014 20:33, Richard Ruquist <yann...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 1:24 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com
> wrote:
On 4 April 2014 15:59, Samiya Illias <samiyaill...@gmail.com> wrote:
I suggest we study and evaluate it for its literal merit, rather
than 'what it might mean' thus removing all constructs and myths
surrounding it. Dr. Maurice Bucaille did something similar when he
examined the scriptures in the light of scientific knowledge.
Online translation:
https://ia700504.us.archive.org/18/items/TheBibletheQuranScienceByDr.mauriceBucaille/TheBibletheQuranScienceByDr.mauriceBucaille.pdf
To be fair, you have to allow that if there is a scientific
inaccuracy in a holy book which is considered the word of God then,
unless God got the science wrong, that would be evidence against
the holy book being the word of God. The problem is that even if a
believer says they are open-minded in this way they don't really
mean it because that would be an admission that they are willing to
test God, which is contrary to faith and therefore bad.
What are you called if you are willing to test god?
A believer?
Rational.
Yes. And as long the test does not contradict his theory, he can
develop a rational belief, which is basically a positive attitude
about some assumption.
In the case of "God", there is one more difficulty, which is the
difficulty to agree on some non trivial definition which should be
precise enough to make a test meaningful and interesting.
With some definition, God can also been disproved, or proved, in
mathematical theories. Gödel's formalization of St-Anselmus' notion
of God makes its existence provable in the modal logic S5 (the
Leibnizian theory).
About Bucaille I will take a second look, but from I read quickly,
it seems to me to take for granted Aristotle's God (the "creation",
the universe), and well, I have some doubt. It is very hard to
interpret such texts. It is too much "easy" to reinterpret favorably
some paragraph, and for a neoplatonist, this would mean that the
author of the sacred text did just have some insight/intuition,
which for a neoplatonist is always divine. In that case, both the
existence of the work of ramanujan, but also the existence of
arithmetic in high school are evidence for "some" God. "Alice in
Wonderland" too.
Why Alice in Wonderland?
You might read "the annotated Alice" by Martin Gardner. Lewis Carroll
"perturbed" classical logic, and found everything: relativity, the
quantum, Gödel, .... He is better than Plotinus. Unfortunately, he was
completely rejected by Charles Ludwig Dodgson, who was quite
reactionary---an aspect made quasi explicit in his longer "Sylvie &
Bruno". Is Mr Dodgson equal to Lewis Carroll?
The rabbit hole in Wonderland is very deep.
For example, it illustrates the hardness to reason with a relativist
nitpicker.
From memory:
Alice: I explore the garden ...
The queen: Oh! you can call that a garden, if you want, but I know
garden in comparison with which this one is more like a desert.
Alice: ... and want to see that hill.
The queen: Oh! you can call that a hill, if you want, but I know hills
in comparison with which this one is more like a valley.
Alice: That is not possible, a hill cannot be a valley, that would be
a nonsense!
The queen: Oh, you can call that a nonsense, if you want, but I know
nonsense in comparison with which this one is as meaningful than a
dictionary!
:)
Bruno
I am uneasy with a priori sacralization of books, as it looks to me
like an encouragement to authoritative arguments. Any one is free to
feel some text divine, but to put "divine" on the front looks close
to blasphemous to me (doubly so when true).
Bruno
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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