That's right, the Bane of All Religion is back. Good day, everyone.
Quite a few people (including myself) have said many times that the Bible, Christianity, and pretty much any other religions are full of contradiction and nonsense. However, such complaints are typically dismissed as interpretation problems -- "if you were more enlightened, you would understand what it <u>really</u> means", or "well, you know how imperfect human scribes are; you can't take it literally."
Well, after a little hiatus from this board, I once again have a little free time to burn and a renewed sense of interest. And this time, you zealots aren't getting away with mere dismissal, either. Because I am talking about the most fundamental nonsense, the kind that defies all logic, the kind that is just purely paradoxical and self-contradictory, and at the center of your beliefs. I am going to mathematically disprove religion by the method of contradiction.
And I begin with the Christian God.
<u>1) Assumptions:</u>
a) God is omniscient, i.e. God knows about absolutely everything.
b) God is self-sufficient, i.e. God is defined exclusively in terms of God itself; God has an existence independent of anything else, and completely self-defined, and self-contained.
What is knowledge? One way to define it, is to say that knowledge is an encoding of information. Then consider God's knowledge as a vast database of encoded information. God knows about everything, which means that God's knowledge database contains information about everything.
Given assumption (1a), therefore, God's knowledge database contains, among other things, a complete encoding of itself; i.e. God knows everything about him/herself as well, including about his/her complete knowledge. Therefore, God's knowledge database, in addition to all information completely encoding everything that has existed and happened, is existent and happening, and will exist and happen -- also completely encodes itself.
But this is nonsensical!
To see why, assume that the database originally stores some information of total capacity D' > 0. To completely encode itself, the database would have to encode its very structure, including its input/output mechanisms, data representation formats, and the very information storage cells that will store the information (according to Assumption 1b). Because the database must, by Assumption 1b, encode the structure of its very storage medium, the total required capacity (call it C) depends on D' -- the larger D' is, the larger C must become to completely encode the entire storage medium. That means C can be written as a sum of capacities -- capacity needed to encode the database's structure (call it Ds), and capacity needed to encode the databases storage medium as well as the data stored on that medium (call it Dm). By definition, then, Dm > D', and C = Ds + Dm, and therefore C > Dm. However, C is now the total storage capacity of the database (formerly denoted as D') -- and to encode all of this information, we will need a capacity of Dm > C! But this cannot be, as C > Dm! We have a blatant contradiction here -- and this contradiction does not arise out of a flaw in the argument. It arises because at least one of the original premises (either 1a or 1b) is false!
To put this result into more layman's terms, God cannot know everything and cannot be self-sufficient -- because if that were not so, God would have to contain a complete description and definition of itself. But such a complete definition would also have to include its very own text, since it must by definition contain its own definition, which contains its own definition, which contains its own definition, and so on with no end, creating an infinite recursion. Therefore, God can never possess enough capacity to encode absolutely everything; not even an infinite capacity would suffice!
This, in fact, is a proven mathematical theorem fundamental to computation (it was not originally directed at God). It demonstrates, for example, that life cannot completely encode itself in order to procreate; a lot of information needed for existence of life must by necessity be implicit in the environment and behavior and configurations of matter, etc. That is to say, life is not self-sufficient; it is not defined in the absense of its environment. Similarly, God cannot exist simply and purely by itself; by necessity God must exist within an environment which is not part of God, but existed for at least as long as God did. Furthermore, God cannot contain a complete encoding of itself and its environment! That means, there is <u>something</u> of which God is not aware and could never become aware. Therefore, God cannot be omniscient; in fact, omniscience is mathematically impossible -- and no more possible is self-sufficiency.
In fact, omnisciency and self-sufficiency are intimately related, as both imply an ability for an object or a being to completely encode itself at every level -- which is a mathematical and logical impossibility.
Conclusions? <u>God is NOT omniscient. God is NOT self-sufficient.</u>
<u>2) Assumptions:</u>
a) God is all-powerful
b) God existed forever (time does not apply to God)
As demonstrated in 1), God is not omniscient, and therefore does not know about certain things. And if he doesn't know about them, he cannot control them. Bingo, God is not all-powerful.
As a more direct consequence of the assumptions in this section, consider the problem of God's death. Can God end its own existence? No! After all, by Assumption 2b, God had no origin. Therefore, time does not apply to God. Therefore, God has no end. Therefore, God cannot commit suicide! Therefore, God is not all-powerful. Incidentally, by premise 2b, God apparently cannot reproduce either (create other Gods) -- pretty pathetic for a being of its stature.
Once again, by contradiction, at least one of 2a or 2b must be false!
But if I had to pick only one of the two, I'd say that 2a is false. Because otherwise, we may imagine tasking God with the following problem -- create the largest universe that you could possibly create. If God cannot stand up to the challenge, he is already not all-powerful. However, if he does stand up to the challenge, we can then ask him to create a universe twice that size -- which he will be unable to do. Ergo, God cannot be all-powerful.
However, 2b poses its own set of problems:
* if God exists outside of time, then God cannot possibly do things in sequence (or even things which are individually identifiable and distinguishable from other actions), including things like creating a universe piece by piece -- or even conceiving of the universe in such a manner -- or even first conceiving of the universe, and then creating it; certainly, God could not even participate in the universe, since he does not participate in the flow of time; in fact God's existence would be undefined as such -- since any "existence" presupposes a flow of time to give that existence a context. Clearly, this option is not acceptable if we are to believe any Christian lore at all.
* if God does operate within a context of some divine time (i.e. time is part of the context that defines God) -- then an endless existence (coupled with permanent ignorance at some level) must have had surely driven God frighteningly mad infinitely long ago.
This has been rather brief, but I think I've shown quite convincingly that Christianity clashes with sound reason at many, very fundamental, levels.
Of course, some opponents will probably counter with something like: being the lowly stupid morons, we can't possibly understand God, and that's why logic does not apply to God. But to such replies, I offer my own: if you pronounce yourself stupid, inane, and incapable of carrying out a coherent discussion (yes, the kind based on logic) -- then you've got no business discussing anything at all! In fact, you must find the nearest cave as soon as possible, don some animal skins, pick up a stick or a boulder, and return to the true natural existence for which humans were originally "created". Civilization is definitely not for you.
<hr>
Now, let's look at the historical record of Christianity so far.
The Catholic church is the preeminent Christian institution (though, of course, not the only one) -- that is emblematic of the problems encountered with any sect. They continually and in full earnest claim direct communication with God (just like some people on this board we all know and love) -- in violation of principle 2b, by the way. Simultaneously, they have managed to transgress and err in the most egregious ways for centuries and centuries on end.
They extended their authority to the Inquisition and the witch hunts, they have blessed the Crusades, they have dabbled in politics more than the Devil himself ever could, and they have forcefully crushed opposition and criticism, even if only through a sheer moralistic assault when they were restricted from a more physical application.
Clearly, all the gore and depravity of the Bible aside, the so-called saints and servants of God were either lying through their teeth about their divine contact, or they indeed represented a God quite unlike its loving father/mother facade. Either way, hypocricy has piled up so tall over the many centuries, that it must certainly by now stink to high heaven, even if such a place doesn't exist. Given the enormous historical pile of reprehensible behavior masked by the best of intentions, why ought we trust the modern religious establishment about its sincerity or fidelity any more than we should trust the religious establishment of the Middle Ages?
I had been berated previously for excessively focusing on the traditional opposition to science on the part of the religious establishment. After all, so what if the anscient monks were too ignorant to realize that the blasphemous heretics might indeed be correct? Well, the big deal is that those very same clerics also defended their righteous cause with an ardor that can only be described as religious. They were in touch with God; they were His blessed children; they were the guardians and the builders of The Way; they could not have possibly erred with God at their side! In fact, "God said so, so shut up or you end in hell" became the standard response. God said so through "us", of course -- and it's entirely your fault that you are not close enough to God to see the falsity of your blasphemous ways. (remind anybody of some people on this board?) These days, it's not that the earth must be flat. It's just that evolution must be false. Big Bang must be a fraud. And of course, souls are as real as the Evil Abortionists, and you better believe it! God said so, personally, to me, yes, to ME! Well, all I've got to say to that is, "for shame."
Why do we unbelievers find contradictions where seemingly there be none? Well, perhaps it's the overwhelming lack of congruity in religion. Perhaps it's the ever-pervasive irrationality, the moral judgements that defy common sense, the calls for policy that is, to an unbeliever, meaningless if not harmful, the astonishing skill in neglecting the hordes of problems in an obstinate bid to maintain a mindset. These are the real contradictions, going far beyond the text of the Bible. The principle of separation between church and state, coexisting with a House chaplain, with "In God We Trust" on our coins, with swearing on the Bible in our courts, with God written into our very Constitution, and taking allegiance with a mention of God, with a push for religiously motivated blanket abortion policy (clearly oppressive to the unbelievers), religiously motivated institutional anti-Gay discrimination, pressure for prayer in public institutions including schools, trying to position the ridiculous "Creation Science" as a science (and even one worth teaching -- at an institution which is supposed to be impartial to all beliefs), a virtual requirement that the President be religious (or else not be elected) -- overwhelming hypocricy and pervasive inconsistency baffle an independent observer. A call to charity and community values, incredibly somehow married to a drive for slashing socialist agendas. Perfect willingness to use up the Earth as the God's imparted gift to mankind -- coupled with a sentiment that one should not "play God". Disparagement of greed, within a society built on it! All the while personally pushing and rooting for an egotistic, niggardly, penny-counting agenda, supposedly designed to boost an already booming economy, which is in danger of overheating as is! A cry for a return to the decrepit past, at the dawn of opportunity and change, of the most dramatic transformation in human civilization to ever take place. These are the contradictions, but a few among many too numerous to list.
Religion at its best, or worst. Brimming with hypocricy and twisted reasoning, an ever-productive source of embarassment and desperation to those who actually wish for a country based on principles rather than psychological and material convenience.
------------------
I am; therefore I think.
[This message has been edited by Boris (edited January 16, 2000).]
Quite a few people (including myself) have said many times that the Bible, Christianity, and pretty much any other religions are full of contradiction and nonsense. However, such complaints are typically dismissed as interpretation problems -- "if you were more enlightened, you would understand what it <u>really</u> means", or "well, you know how imperfect human scribes are; you can't take it literally."
Well, after a little hiatus from this board, I once again have a little free time to burn and a renewed sense of interest. And this time, you zealots aren't getting away with mere dismissal, either. Because I am talking about the most fundamental nonsense, the kind that defies all logic, the kind that is just purely paradoxical and self-contradictory, and at the center of your beliefs. I am going to mathematically disprove religion by the method of contradiction.
And I begin with the Christian God.
<u>1) Assumptions:</u>
a) God is omniscient, i.e. God knows about absolutely everything.
b) God is self-sufficient, i.e. God is defined exclusively in terms of God itself; God has an existence independent of anything else, and completely self-defined, and self-contained.
What is knowledge? One way to define it, is to say that knowledge is an encoding of information. Then consider God's knowledge as a vast database of encoded information. God knows about everything, which means that God's knowledge database contains information about everything.
Given assumption (1a), therefore, God's knowledge database contains, among other things, a complete encoding of itself; i.e. God knows everything about him/herself as well, including about his/her complete knowledge. Therefore, God's knowledge database, in addition to all information completely encoding everything that has existed and happened, is existent and happening, and will exist and happen -- also completely encodes itself.
But this is nonsensical!
To see why, assume that the database originally stores some information of total capacity D' > 0. To completely encode itself, the database would have to encode its very structure, including its input/output mechanisms, data representation formats, and the very information storage cells that will store the information (according to Assumption 1b). Because the database must, by Assumption 1b, encode the structure of its very storage medium, the total required capacity (call it C) depends on D' -- the larger D' is, the larger C must become to completely encode the entire storage medium. That means C can be written as a sum of capacities -- capacity needed to encode the database's structure (call it Ds), and capacity needed to encode the databases storage medium as well as the data stored on that medium (call it Dm). By definition, then, Dm > D', and C = Ds + Dm, and therefore C > Dm. However, C is now the total storage capacity of the database (formerly denoted as D') -- and to encode all of this information, we will need a capacity of Dm > C! But this cannot be, as C > Dm! We have a blatant contradiction here -- and this contradiction does not arise out of a flaw in the argument. It arises because at least one of the original premises (either 1a or 1b) is false!
To put this result into more layman's terms, God cannot know everything and cannot be self-sufficient -- because if that were not so, God would have to contain a complete description and definition of itself. But such a complete definition would also have to include its very own text, since it must by definition contain its own definition, which contains its own definition, which contains its own definition, and so on with no end, creating an infinite recursion. Therefore, God can never possess enough capacity to encode absolutely everything; not even an infinite capacity would suffice!
This, in fact, is a proven mathematical theorem fundamental to computation (it was not originally directed at God). It demonstrates, for example, that life cannot completely encode itself in order to procreate; a lot of information needed for existence of life must by necessity be implicit in the environment and behavior and configurations of matter, etc. That is to say, life is not self-sufficient; it is not defined in the absense of its environment. Similarly, God cannot exist simply and purely by itself; by necessity God must exist within an environment which is not part of God, but existed for at least as long as God did. Furthermore, God cannot contain a complete encoding of itself and its environment! That means, there is <u>something</u> of which God is not aware and could never become aware. Therefore, God cannot be omniscient; in fact, omniscience is mathematically impossible -- and no more possible is self-sufficiency.
In fact, omnisciency and self-sufficiency are intimately related, as both imply an ability for an object or a being to completely encode itself at every level -- which is a mathematical and logical impossibility.
Conclusions? <u>God is NOT omniscient. God is NOT self-sufficient.</u>
<u>2) Assumptions:</u>
a) God is all-powerful
b) God existed forever (time does not apply to God)
As demonstrated in 1), God is not omniscient, and therefore does not know about certain things. And if he doesn't know about them, he cannot control them. Bingo, God is not all-powerful.
As a more direct consequence of the assumptions in this section, consider the problem of God's death. Can God end its own existence? No! After all, by Assumption 2b, God had no origin. Therefore, time does not apply to God. Therefore, God has no end. Therefore, God cannot commit suicide! Therefore, God is not all-powerful. Incidentally, by premise 2b, God apparently cannot reproduce either (create other Gods) -- pretty pathetic for a being of its stature.
Once again, by contradiction, at least one of 2a or 2b must be false!
But if I had to pick only one of the two, I'd say that 2a is false. Because otherwise, we may imagine tasking God with the following problem -- create the largest universe that you could possibly create. If God cannot stand up to the challenge, he is already not all-powerful. However, if he does stand up to the challenge, we can then ask him to create a universe twice that size -- which he will be unable to do. Ergo, God cannot be all-powerful.
However, 2b poses its own set of problems:
* if God exists outside of time, then God cannot possibly do things in sequence (or even things which are individually identifiable and distinguishable from other actions), including things like creating a universe piece by piece -- or even conceiving of the universe in such a manner -- or even first conceiving of the universe, and then creating it; certainly, God could not even participate in the universe, since he does not participate in the flow of time; in fact God's existence would be undefined as such -- since any "existence" presupposes a flow of time to give that existence a context. Clearly, this option is not acceptable if we are to believe any Christian lore at all.
* if God does operate within a context of some divine time (i.e. time is part of the context that defines God) -- then an endless existence (coupled with permanent ignorance at some level) must have had surely driven God frighteningly mad infinitely long ago.
This has been rather brief, but I think I've shown quite convincingly that Christianity clashes with sound reason at many, very fundamental, levels.
Of course, some opponents will probably counter with something like: being the lowly stupid morons, we can't possibly understand God, and that's why logic does not apply to God. But to such replies, I offer my own: if you pronounce yourself stupid, inane, and incapable of carrying out a coherent discussion (yes, the kind based on logic) -- then you've got no business discussing anything at all! In fact, you must find the nearest cave as soon as possible, don some animal skins, pick up a stick or a boulder, and return to the true natural existence for which humans were originally "created". Civilization is definitely not for you.
<hr>
Now, let's look at the historical record of Christianity so far.
The Catholic church is the preeminent Christian institution (though, of course, not the only one) -- that is emblematic of the problems encountered with any sect. They continually and in full earnest claim direct communication with God (just like some people on this board we all know and love) -- in violation of principle 2b, by the way. Simultaneously, they have managed to transgress and err in the most egregious ways for centuries and centuries on end.
They extended their authority to the Inquisition and the witch hunts, they have blessed the Crusades, they have dabbled in politics more than the Devil himself ever could, and they have forcefully crushed opposition and criticism, even if only through a sheer moralistic assault when they were restricted from a more physical application.
Clearly, all the gore and depravity of the Bible aside, the so-called saints and servants of God were either lying through their teeth about their divine contact, or they indeed represented a God quite unlike its loving father/mother facade. Either way, hypocricy has piled up so tall over the many centuries, that it must certainly by now stink to high heaven, even if such a place doesn't exist. Given the enormous historical pile of reprehensible behavior masked by the best of intentions, why ought we trust the modern religious establishment about its sincerity or fidelity any more than we should trust the religious establishment of the Middle Ages?
I had been berated previously for excessively focusing on the traditional opposition to science on the part of the religious establishment. After all, so what if the anscient monks were too ignorant to realize that the blasphemous heretics might indeed be correct? Well, the big deal is that those very same clerics also defended their righteous cause with an ardor that can only be described as religious. They were in touch with God; they were His blessed children; they were the guardians and the builders of The Way; they could not have possibly erred with God at their side! In fact, "God said so, so shut up or you end in hell" became the standard response. God said so through "us", of course -- and it's entirely your fault that you are not close enough to God to see the falsity of your blasphemous ways. (remind anybody of some people on this board?) These days, it's not that the earth must be flat. It's just that evolution must be false. Big Bang must be a fraud. And of course, souls are as real as the Evil Abortionists, and you better believe it! God said so, personally, to me, yes, to ME! Well, all I've got to say to that is, "for shame."
Why do we unbelievers find contradictions where seemingly there be none? Well, perhaps it's the overwhelming lack of congruity in religion. Perhaps it's the ever-pervasive irrationality, the moral judgements that defy common sense, the calls for policy that is, to an unbeliever, meaningless if not harmful, the astonishing skill in neglecting the hordes of problems in an obstinate bid to maintain a mindset. These are the real contradictions, going far beyond the text of the Bible. The principle of separation between church and state, coexisting with a House chaplain, with "In God We Trust" on our coins, with swearing on the Bible in our courts, with God written into our very Constitution, and taking allegiance with a mention of God, with a push for religiously motivated blanket abortion policy (clearly oppressive to the unbelievers), religiously motivated institutional anti-Gay discrimination, pressure for prayer in public institutions including schools, trying to position the ridiculous "Creation Science" as a science (and even one worth teaching -- at an institution which is supposed to be impartial to all beliefs), a virtual requirement that the President be religious (or else not be elected) -- overwhelming hypocricy and pervasive inconsistency baffle an independent observer. A call to charity and community values, incredibly somehow married to a drive for slashing socialist agendas. Perfect willingness to use up the Earth as the God's imparted gift to mankind -- coupled with a sentiment that one should not "play God". Disparagement of greed, within a society built on it! All the while personally pushing and rooting for an egotistic, niggardly, penny-counting agenda, supposedly designed to boost an already booming economy, which is in danger of overheating as is! A cry for a return to the decrepit past, at the dawn of opportunity and change, of the most dramatic transformation in human civilization to ever take place. These are the contradictions, but a few among many too numerous to list.
Religion at its best, or worst. Brimming with hypocricy and twisted reasoning, an ever-productive source of embarassment and desperation to those who actually wish for a country based on principles rather than psychological and material convenience.
------------------
I am; therefore I think.
[This message has been edited by Boris (edited January 16, 2000).]
I sat out for a spell too. I havn't read your post yet. I'll get to it when I have more time. I'm just glad to know that you are still among the living. Now, all we have to do is get some real Life into you. 