Why I am not a Christian

[Whaleboy]

I shall attempt to answer the points of your post in a condensed, structured manner as opposed to quote-by-quote, this should be more space-efficient and easier to read in context of our arguments.

Regarding our knowledge of the leap from reason to faith, from one side of the rivine to the other in the absense of knowledge of a bridge. You raise an interesting point that the interface between faith and reason, if I may call it an interface is a subjective one. When I say subjective here, I mean it is subject both to individual interpretation and knowledge, society and general philosophical or scientific progress. If I were unaware of any arguments against God's existence, yet I regarded the pro-God arguments as insufficient I may either believe in God or be agnostic, since I would not have the grounds for atheism. I have the grounds for atheism now however, as a provisional scientific assessment. Now earlier I explained the remit for science, that which is categorically objectifiable, or empirical. It would be arrogant and frankly fallacious if I were to claim that science was even close to fulfilling its remit; it is not, be we can establish grounds for that remit hence my other arguments re. deity. This is why I do not agree with theories or statements premised by faith that present themselves in the scientific context. Remember that in science, the predicate for all knowledge is the statement "I don't know". But of course, regarding holes in science, that is no argument for deity, the proof by ignorance is a fallacy (lack of evidence for |= evidence against, at best it is an indirect, circumstancial indication, often mitigated by other things).

I am concerned though that by your final sentence on the topic, you were implying that inductive reasoning is lumped together with faith... I do not see that as so. Reason needs induction to make reasonable claims, since you're not saying anything Earth-shattering with 2+2=4. The soundness of inductive reasoning depends on external deductive factors subject to the context of consideration, but whereupon those are agreed, progress can be made, like in all arguments.

Now regarding trusting ones "sight" so to speak. As Descartes says it is not prudent to trust one who has previously deceived you. But then, to ignore that bypasses both faith and reason, the conclusion of which is Diogenes in his barrel or my solipcism. One makes presumptions that others exist and one attempts to interact with the world which of course requires reason and faith in one context, and faith in reason/reason -> faith in another. I should like the dilineate there of course, on the higher context where they are not dualistic it may be more prudent to compare it to love and logic, which as you may recall is a device I use often.

Now regarding evolution itself. Let it first be said that when it comes to debating I'm usually flexible and will change my mind when I know better, but that is more the case in science, I have no steadfast attraction to classical evolution. My concurrence with evolution is with the evolution of the moment, with special attention paid to the theory as it was after the work of Francis and Crick. Darwin's theory today, as he wrote it, has been largely superceded by it's modern descendants. It was a groundbreaking piece of science for its time, view it in the context in which it was written; a truly heroic piece of science and personal chutzpah, but Darwin was not a perfect scientist; he made errors and some of his other theories are regarded today by modern science as creationism is also. That we have greater control over our environment, a control subject to our whimsical intelligence and profound stupidity there can be little doubt. That accordingly we exert a control over our own evolutionary progress too is certain, perhaps now more so than ever with the advent of genetic modification/manipulation. You ask if we shape our environment, how are we subject to it? You answered that by mentioning an evolutionary feedback loop. It's not something Darwin could have possibly accounted for, he wasn't even aware of DNA. He couldn't have observed it in the Galapogos islands and it requires a widening of the notion of "survival of the fittest". But does any of this contravene the basic laws of evolution, as that theory is today (which you might more safely regard as an aspect of genetics more than anything else)? I do not think it does. Consider the analogy of the artillery piece and the rocket. The cannonball is subject to the laws of ballistics. The muzzle velocity, angle of launch, local gravitational field etc, will all effect flight path, flight time, maximum height, range, and all the rest of it. A rocket on the other hand is not bound by the same model because it has a source of onboard acceleration, control surfaces and what have you. It's flight path cannot be predicted by the same equation that governs the flight of a cannonball, however, does this now mean that it is not bound by Newtonian mechanics?

You say that a theory should not be adhered to as canonical even if the majority hold it as true, and I completely agree. Like I said, a theory should be judged by its merits, and should not rely on faith. You can read up on evolution and faith is redundant when concurring with it. That scientists do have faith in it, yes it's true. Do atheists have unnecessary faith that there is no god? Yes! (the lady doth protest too much). I maintain though that this is not an indictment of the theories, which are, after all, what we are discussing. They are an unfortunate consequence of having humans in the world. Few scientists are also philosophers, in my experience I would have no greater expectation of them to understand the philosophy of science or distinctions between faith and reason than a pornographer. However, if you'll forgive the digression, I think this error on the part of scientists is understandable.

Since the time of the inquisition, when science and natural philosophy was starting to encroach on the doctrine of the Church, science had been persecuted. It doesn't do ones psyche any good to be constantly ostracised for ones views or approach, especially when the people that do it act unreasonably. Couple that with general popular mistrust of the scientist, the intellectual and the technician and you'll see that some of these peoples lives must have been incredibly sad and lonely. Consider poor Galileo, I certainly don't envy his life. It is only natural therefore that they would get angry or bitter, and entrench themselves, and indeed it is easy when a theory becomes increasingly self-evident, against something like the Aristotolian model of the solar system or biblical creationism, that it's easy to justify and magnify the justice of your cause against your oppressors. From a modern, scientific point of view I don't think that this kind of oppositional polarisation is helpful, though it still continues on both sides, creationists denouncing and refusing to listen to evolutionists, evolutionists ridiculing creationists etc... but it's perfectly understandable. The best thing for us, as reasonable people able to rise above all of this, is to cut through a half-millenium of bickering and to judge the theory by its merits, it's validity, and not by those who have espoused it.

EDIT: As for the bible, yes I should read it but it's not convenient to do so at this point in time, if any passages come to mind that actually deal with (and not presume) the existence of God it may well be useful for the debate. At your convenience of course, I'll google in the morning.

[Elok]

What I'm defending is a little bit different from what you're attacking...I think. There's a phenomenon almost unique to Orthodox Christians, which I call OrthoShock. It comes from our basic ignorance of the vast differences between us and the other Christian faiths. So I, at least, wind up defending my religion against patently untrue statements...that were technically correct in describing the beliefs of the majority of Christians. Like the Blood Atonement doctrine, which sounds absurd to most of us but is standard-issue for just about everyone else, apparently.

I'm not trying to proselytize or anything, it's just that after going through an Eastern Religions course this past semester I've come to appreciate that my own faith-the most ancient form of preserved Christian worship-is far more similar to the eastern religions in spirit than to the West. So yeah, do be careful about them thar generalizations. I'm assuming you've read something about buddhism, or hinduism, or zen, or taoism, or some other eastern religion?

Oh, and to Ben, and maybe Whaleboy too, I give my first great precept, the same one that drives me to refute every attack on religion: people do not dedicate their lives to an idea that is so internally inconsistent as to be hacked to bits by a few simple words from a casual armchair expert. This applies for both religious ideas and scientific ones. There is no truth in the mental image of a complacent idiot resting securely in a narrow viewpoint and defending it fanatically. I think we both know that to be a real fanatic is to be eternally contemplative of your mania, because it becomes the truth on which your whole reality is founded. I therefore consider it safe to say that any "blatant holes" presented by opponents of an idea should be held in extreme suspicion, because I've never met a single one that wasn't a strawman. Espousal of one established system of beliefs over another is based more on judgment of competing values, weighing one concern against another, than on actual clear-cut reason. I prefer to measure those instead of holes which won't be found.

Just another of Elok's cutesy pearls of dubious wisdom...

[Whaleboy]

I'm not trying to proselytize or anything, it's just that after going through an Eastern Religions course this past semester I've come to appreciate that my own faith-the most ancient form of preserved Christian worship-is far more similar to the eastern religions in spirit than to the West. So yeah, do be careful about them thar generalizations. I'm assuming you've read something about buddhism, or hinduism, or zen, or taoism, or some other eastern religion?

Naturally. Went through quite a long Buddhist phase before I became a cynic, during which time I read the Bhargavad Gita and a few commentaries. English translations of course, but still, Sanskrit .

It is a dangerous game I concur, which is why precision is needed. If we call something an organised religion then there are certain things in common with that phenomenon that make it an organised religion, and one must be specific about making deductions using that.

Espousal of one established system of beliefs over another is based more on judgment of competing values, weighing one concern against another, than on actual clear-cut reason. I prefer to measure those instead of holes which won't be found.

As a relativist yes I concur, however some basic principles of arguments apply, and as arguments get more and more complex errors in suppositions and reasoning appears. That is common in all arguments, and I do not take it as an indication of soundness or validity that an argument is popular, long-lived and has people devoting their lives to it. People are firstly easily manipulated and secondly whereupon they have faith in something, the flaws in the reasoning of said something cease to matter. But as I said with BK, it is far better to judge each argument by its own merits not by how many people agree with it, and how strongly.

And there are arguments which are full of holes that are very long lived. How nice the conclusions are and how sound they are usually dictate the longevity, but that says nothing about the premises.

Just another of Elok's cutesy pearls of dubious wisdom...

It’s cool, I appreciate the insight because though I do not agree it helps us all to clarify and understand our own positions more.

[Elok]

Actually, ideologies that people invest a lot of energy in tend to be perfectly consistent internally...they just rely on certain basic suppositions or viewpoints that outsiders dispute. Things that people feel genuinely passionate about, they tend to investigate, and that investigation tends to root out inconsistencies.

I was answering Ben more than you, BTW; I was thinking of the various forms of Creation Science specifically. Scientists have been researching and writing papers about evolutionary theory for a hundred-odd years. Holes as blatantly obvious as people claim exist are very unlikely. The only possible hole I can detect in it is the over-haste to claim natural selection, but that's not some sinister campaign of disinformation, it's just the only naturalistic explanation, hence the name "natural selection." A basic assumption, but provided that basic assumption is correct, it's perfectly consistent.

Similarly, most of the "inconsistencies" people find in the bible have been noted for years by scholars in monasteries, as is natural given their need to all but memorize the book. Half of them are taken badly out of context (e.g. the things about "why aren't Christians kosher" is answered plainly in the Acts of the Apostles, if they even applied to begin with given that the Law was given specifically to the tribes of Israel), and the rest seem silly only when based on invalid assumptions (Noah's flood would require a band of water about the earth this big and blah blah...because a being that can create the whole universe can't just make water appear, right?).

But I shouldn't even need to say that. It's the most published book in western history. Huge as it is, I don't think that any chunks of the Bible have somehow not been noticed by the absolutely massive numbers of seminarians and theologians doing theses on them for the past 1500 years. The usual allegation is that there was a conspiracy theory, or cover-up, or some such. Not the simpler explanation, that it actually makes sense with closer study. If people really wanted an explanation they'd ask a priest or theologian, not some zitfaced cynic armed with quotes from abusiveatheist.org.

I'm not saying not to investigate, I just prefer to be skeptical of anything Against the Establishment until it's done a good job of proving itself and explaining why the Establishment's been around for so long if it doesn't do somebody some good. The tendency of people to corrupt their ideologies is counterbalanced, for me, by the tendency of people to make a big fuss over nothing just to get attention.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Whaleboy

Not entirely... I dislike as a whole the denegration of rationality, in that because we cannot empirically experience God or lack of God, we cannot state the existence or nonexistence of them, since we are able to empirically experience the logical system that God must obey in order to exist in the manner claimed, i.e., we can test the predictions a theory makes against logical systems, which is why in my opinion God cannot exist as an infinite being, though I am willing to entertain the possibility of a giant alien of finite power .

In another thread months ago we were discussing exactly this idea and we never finished filling in the gaps.

IIRC I had postulated that an n-dimensional being might 'create' an (n-1)-dimensional spacetime such that the perfect illusion (from the point of view of the n-1 beings in the created spacetime) of interaction between the creator and the n-1 spacetime could be imbedded in the created spacetime from it's inception.

An anology was made to a programmer writing a little program to display a 2d spacetime and simply encoding the input into it before it was even executed.

Why are you so confident that any sort of interaction whatsoever would be impossible between the n-dimensional being and the (n-1) dimensional spacetime?

[Whaleboy]

IIRC I had postulated that an n-dimensional being might 'create' an (n-1)-dimensional spacetime such that the perfect illusion (from the point of view of the n-1 beings in the created spacetime) of interaction between the creator and the n-1 spacetime could be imbedded in the created spacetime from it's inception.

That would be akin to the "black-hole has no hair" theorum (of which Hawkings' latest work is derivation). That all you can know of a blackhole are some of the properties of the body that caused it... mass, spin and charge.

If time was absolute, then yes you may well have a point since that would enable God to manipulate that as a spatial dimension according to *our* perception, so effectively creating a conscious communication, but special relativity shows time to be relative so that cannot happen.

The programmer analogy is an interesting one but not perfect... since the dimensions of consideration (as is the case with the flaw in my rubber mat example) are not running perpendicular to each other (consider a hypercube).

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


That would be akin to the "black-hole has no hair" theorum (of which Hawkings' latest work is derivation). That all you can know of a blackhole are some of the properties of the body that caused it... mass, spin and charge.

If time was absolute, then yes you may well have a point since that would enable God to manipulate that as a spatial dimension according to *our* perception, so effectively creating a conscious communication, but special relativity shows time to be relative so that cannot happen.

The programmer analogy is an interesting one but not perfect... since the dimensions of consideration (as is the case with the flaw in my rubber mat example) are not running perpendicular to each other (consider a hypercube).

What exactly do you mean by truly conscious communication? Do you mean something more than making intelligible information available?

You may have to explain how special relativity comes into play for the imbedding of information in the spacetime as a part of it's creation. Time isn't absolute, but that only means that manipulations of it as a spatial dimension (which I do not see as necessary for communication) would give differing apparent results dependent on frame of reference.

back to the rubber mat anaology:

Originally posted by Whaleboy Picture a tramampoline, or any stretched out rubber mat. This represents Einsteinian space-time. Now if you put a body of mass, say, a cricket ball on the mat, there will be an indentation created, which represents the warping of space-time by mass. Now a cricket ball weighs about 300g, and has a diameter of about 8cm. Imagine that you keep the mass constant, but you halve the diameter. The pressure on the mat will obviously increase (pressure = force/area) and the indentation too. If you keep halving the diameter of the ball, eventually the pressure on the mat will get so great that it will break and the ball will drop through and hit the ground beneath. What I have described is a simple analogy for the creation of a black hole; a point of infinite density, infinitesimal size and infinite gravity (so a good example when dealing with infinities).

Now we can perceive perfectly well what has happened on the mat because it exists within dimensions that comply with our senses and consciousness. Now imagine that your plane of existence was that rubber mat. You could perceive only what is on the mat, nothing else. To you, a black hole has just been created and yet *we* can see what has happened. What I am trying to say is that infinity is relative to dimensions, God, in his dimensions, is finite. To us the notion is that he is infinite but by that conclusion we would be unaware of him. Note that my example is not perfect since our extra dimension of time to the fictitious little people on the mat is not perpendicular to their world…. Theirs is still a 4D world, hence they would be aware of us placing a ball on the mat, and we would be perceptible and finite to them, but you get the idea .

It would seem that if the rubber mat is simply a perfect simulation the inhabitants thereof could be made unaware of the ball being placed on the mat by placing it there before the simulation was even 'executed' - ie at it's creation. The ball will simply appear to instantly appear in place to the n-1 spacetime simulation 'inhabitants' but in fact it had been coded in from the start to appear that way.

[Provost Harrison]

Why I am not a Christian

Well it's quite obvious really, you're a demipuff

[Whaleboy]

What exactly do you mean by truly conscious communication? Do you mean something more than making intelligible information available?

To perceive, as a conscious, let alone communicate or understand information (knowledge, empirical), requires the same time dimension (and of course relative time).

No manipulation of time as a spatial dimension would have to occur for communication to take place if time was not relative, which is the only way information could be "encoded" at the point time = 0. As time is relative that renders the possibility academic.

Manipulations of it as a spatial dimension would obviously not manipulate it as a temporal dimension, so any spatial manipulation would be a change "before" (for want of a better word... before in the 5D sense) Time* = 0.

*4D.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


To perceive, as a conscious, let alone communicate or understand information (knowledge, empirical), requires the same time dimension (and of course relative time).

No manipulation of time as a spatial dimension would have to occur for communication to take place if time was not relative, which is the only way information could be "encoded" at the point time = 0. As time is relative that renders the possibility academic.

Manipulations of it as a spatial dimension would obviously not manipulate it as a temporal dimension, so any spatial manipulation would be a change "before" (for want of a better word... before in the 5D sense) Time* = 0.

*4D.

I don't think it requires the same time dimension in the broader sense of 'communication' involving an apparent exchange of information to at least one of the involved powers. Sharing the same time dimension in fact would preclude precognitive omniscience of the n-1 dimension by the n dimensional being so it is less useful as a way of modeling 'god' anyway.

The situation that is most workable would appear to be that in which the time dimension is not shared, ie for 5d vs 4d the 5d entity would perceive our time dimension as spacial and we would not perceive it's time dimension at all. The 5d entity would thus observe our entire spacetime as a static object. 'Communication' might appear to be real and ordinary to the 4d entities but for the 5d entity it is simply a matter of observation and perhaps a single creative event which made any information exchange part of the static object from it's creation.

[Whaleboy]

Sharing the same time dimension in fact would preclude precognitive omniscience of the n-1 dimension by the n dimensional being so it is less useful as a way of modeling 'god' anyway.

Indeed, as a consequence, God, should he exist, cannot see us either, just as we could not see a three-dimensional being living inside my reading glasses. Such is a conseqeunce of the "infinite" definition of omnipotent/scient.

'Communication' might appear to be real and ordinary to the 4d entities but for the 5d entity it is simply a matter of observation and perhaps a single creative event which made any information exchange part of the static object from it's creation.

Well you can model the effect by saying we are n dimension, and a hypothetical n-1 dimensional object. A communication, if you accept that communication requires time to emit and time to perceive (and the same time dimension such that it is not infinite and infinitesimal to the sender or (more importnatly) the receiver), would effect the entire length of that dimension, since you have eliminated uncertainty principle and contextual the finite cognitive (we could not understand all in our universe), it is determinable.... to borrow from the sum over histories, the path of the particle from A-B would be a curve in that dimension, a straight line to anyone on it of course.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


Indeed, as a consequence, God, should he exist, cannot see us either, just as we could not see a three-dimensional being living inside my reading glasses. Such is a conseqeunce of the "infinite" definition of omnipotent/scient.



Well you can model the effect by saying we are n dimension, and a hypothetical n-1 dimensional object. A communication, if you accept that communication requires time to emit and time to perceive (and the same time dimension such that it is not infinite and infinitesimal to the sender or (more importnatly) the receiver), would effect the entire length of that dimension, since you have eliminated uncertainty principle and contextual the finite cognitive (we could not understand all in our universe), it is determinable.... to borrow from the sum over histories, the path of the particle from A-B would be a curve in that dimension, a straight line to anyone on it of course.

A three dimensional being living inside your reading glasses would certainly be detectable if it was 'inside' your reading glasses. Of course to be 'inside' of them in any meaningful way it would be necessary for it to be subject to our laws of phyics and it's 3 dimensional nature would require breaking the symmetry of our 3 spacial dimensions to say nothing of the need to allow our laws of physics to accomodate life in 2 spacial dimensions - none of which is consistent with all that we know about the universe. However, there is no need to assume that the 5d universe which would contain our 4d spacetime contains only our physical laws. That appears to be where we are not seeing eye to eye. The assertion that a 5d entity could not percieve our 4d spacetime only applies if we assume the 5d spacetime otherwise resembles our own.

If I create a program that models a simple 3d spacetime and allow some sort of simple 3d entity to exist confined to information obtainable within that 3d simulated environment, it might likewise surmise that our 4d reality is logically impossible and that we (the creators of the program) logically cannot exist as entities aware of it's existance or able to have influenced it in any manner. Of course in part this would be true, since from our perspective the 3d simulated environment and the sentient entity it contains is a static object. On the other hand if we embedded in the simulated environment information that 'eventually' (ie at some point and all points futureward along the simulated time dimension of the programmed reality) gave the 3d entities information about us, they could know all about us without having access to any way of independantly verifying the information. In this manner the 3d entities could percieve 'communication' with us even though from our perspective their reality is a static (pointlike with respect to time) object.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
A communication, if you accept that communication requires time to emit and time to perceive (and the same time dimension such that it is not infinite and infinitesimal to the sender or (more importnatly) the receiver), would effect the entire length of that dimension, since you have eliminated uncertainty principle and contextual the finite cognitive

I should speak further on this part of your post. I think you need to explain why it matters if the time dimensions are different.


Suppose when god is lolling about in his exotic 5d universe he decides the simple 4d reality he is going to simulate will contain message that will be made to appear in the sky at the point on our time axis corresponding to jan 14th 2005. god then goes and makes his 4d simulation and executes it. To god the finished universe is just a static 4d object, like a computer printout would be a static object for us. He examines the output and notes that indeed the message "Whaleboy, know that I am the 5d entiy that created this universe - God" duly appears in the output as having appeared in the sky on the 4d time point of jan 14th 2005 and effected all portions of the simulated environment further along the simulated 4d time dimension from that point forward. Nothing changed when the communication was made because it was there from the very beginning. It didnt matter that the time dimensions were different for the simualted environment and for the 5d spacetime, the message still got through. So long as all communication is imbedded in this way in the event of creation there is no need to worry about whether the same time dimension is shared.

I should add that nothing would ever make the communication appear to be normal communication for both entities. From the point of view of god everthing we have to say is said all at once so a give and take style of communication is impossible.

[Ben Kenobi]

Whaleboy:

I find I post better if I try to squeeze my thoughts, rather than allowing them to ramble. Hence my style.

If I were unaware of any arguments against God's existence, yet I regarded the pro-God arguments as insufficient I may either believe in God or be agnostic, since I would not have the grounds for atheism.

Depends. If you felt the arguments in favour of God to be insufficient, that presumes the fault lies, not with God, but with the argument. I would tend to think that once you reach that point, you will look to find better arguments for God that will satisfy you, rather than sitting on the sidelines as an agnostic. To be an agnostic is to admit that the argument is not so much insufficient, but rather that it is also, the best one can do.

This is why I do not agree with theories or statements premised by faith that present themselves in the scientific context.

Agreed. And I do not believe I have defended such theories, or insisted that they be taught as such. That is not the purpose of scripture. That is the realm of science. However, I also do not agree with scientific statements that present themselves in the realm of theology, or attempt to reach theological conclusions in addition to their normal ones.

The soundness of inductive reasoning depends on external deductive factors subject to the context of consideration, but whereupon those are agreed, progress can be made, like in all arguments.

Yet it must be acknowledged that inductive reasoning has its limits. That is the point I was trying to draw out. Rather than saying faith ought to supercede inductive reasoning, it makes more sense to say that it goes beyond inductive reasoning, given the limits that such reason is subject.

That accordingly we exert a control over our own evolutionary progress too is certain, perhaps now more so than ever with the advent of genetic modification/manipulation. You ask if we shape our environment, how are we subject to it? You answered that by mentioning an evolutionary feedback loop. It's not something Darwin could have possibly accounted for, he wasn't even aware of DNA. He couldn't have observed it in the Galapogos islands and it requires a widening of the notion of "survival of the fittest".

I agree. I do not hold Darwin to blame for all his errors, particularly one such as this.

However, I want to extend the thought one step further. If we look back at Darwin, and wonder how he could have thought what he thought, will we not say the same for the current scientific theories today?

A rocket on the other hand is not bound by the same model because it has a source of onboard acceleration, control surfaces and what have you. It's flight path cannot be predicted by the same equation that governs the flight of a cannonball, however, does this now mean that it is not bound by Newtonian mechanics?

If it reaches velocities close to c, then yes.

Since the time of the inquisition, when science and natural philosophy was starting to encroach on the doctrine of the Church, science had been persecuted.

Many of the best scientists of the Renaissance were Christians, and many of the greatest discoveries were made by Christians.

Science is not contradictory to religion. I agree that there may have been some who said that, but more often then not, it is those who reject faith who say this, and not those who reject science.

It doesn't do ones psyche any good to be constantly ostracised for ones views or approach, especially when the people that do it act unreasonably. Couple that with general popular mistrust of the scientist, the intellectual and the technician and you'll see that some of these peoples lives must have been incredibly sad and lonely.

General popular mistrust of a scientist? That's an interesting claim. There isn't much that we have that is written by the 'rabble' of the Renaissance that we can use to evaluate this claim.

Consider poor Galileo, I certainly don't envy his life. It is only natural therefore that they would get angry or bitter, and entrench themselves, and indeed it is easy when a theory becomes increasingly self-evident, against something like the Aristotolian model of the solar system or biblical creationism, that it's easy to justify and magnify the justice of your cause against your oppressors.

Actually, the church only started to get worried about Galileo when he starting philosophising about the empirical nature of mathematical claims. Essentially, what was real, was to be defined, as to what one could calculate.

[Ben Kenobi]

Oh, and to Ben, and maybe Whaleboy too, I give my first great precept, the same one that drives me to refute every attack on religion: people do not dedicate their lives to an idea that is so internally inconsistent as to be hacked to bits by a few simple words from a casual armchair expert.

No, it is often the child who does a far better job of this.

You have to remember Elok, I was in science. For me to say that all scientists are foolish, that their concepts are so internally inconsistent, is to cast aspersions on my own thoughts. I respect their thoughts, because most of the ones that are there, are ones I have had myself, particularly with whaleboy's on evolution. They are my own writings from first year, being flung back at me.

So consider this please, before being quick to pigeonhole me.