On 04 Dec 2013, at 21:41, meekerdb wrote:
On 12/4/2013 1:38 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 03 Dec 2013, at 21:53, meekerdb wrote:
On 12/3/2013 10:09 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 02 Dec 2013, at 19:11, meekerdb wrote:
On 12/2/2013 1:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
wants to be worshiped, judges people and rewards and punishes
them.
That's a legend used to put people in place so that they will
be worshiped, so that they can judged other people, reward and
punish them.
Why do you credit such things. Why can you believe that we
should listen to them? You are the one giving them importance,
and by arguing against a scientific approach to "God, souls,
afterlife, meaning, etc." you will maintain the current fairy
tale aspect in theology, and you will contribute in maintaining
them in power.
I don't credit such things.
So why do you come back on it? Why not abstract ourself from the
fairy tales, once and for all, if we don't credit them.
Because billions of people believe (or pretend to believe) the
fairy tales and want to make public policy based on their book of
fairy tales. In the U.S., before some courts ruled that leading
prayers in public schools was unconstitutional, the fundamentalist
churches did not participate in politics. The held themselves to
be concerned with an unearthly, spiritual realm that transcended
politics. But the prayer in school ruling caused them to become
activists and they were seen as resource by the conservative
Republicans that had taken over southern politics after the civil
rights act of 1964. Since then they have campaigned politically
to outlaw abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage, teaching
evolution, deny global warming, and expand Israel.
That is a result of having separated theology from science.
I think you have a pollyannish view of history. Theology, the
belief in superhuman gods, preceded science as a disciple by
millenia. Theology was based on faith and priests and dogma, and it
supported the state. Theologians held secret, esoteric discussions
of the gods, but if they deviated much from the theology of the
state they were punished (c.f. Socrates and your namesake). Science
was only able to come into existence as an empirical search for
truths when the Church was split and weakened and theology was left
to apologetics.
Half of science. The branch of theology was kept by "authorities".
I don't know how you imagine science could have developed if it had
separated from theology - nor how it could proceed now by taking up
theology.
By not eliminating person.
Note that there have been scientific tests of theology: specifically
of the efficacy of healing prayer. So it is not that scientists
reject dogmas out of hand.
Good.
But the idea is important because so many people believe it
And they are wrong on many things, but perhaps not on everything,
so why not try to show them a less naive approach? Their own
theologian are not that naďve. And their are many approaches and
conception of God, Gods, and Goddesses, It or That.
Which theologians? There is no agreement among theologians.
There are agreements and there are disagreements. Also among
Quantum physicists.
Not about the experimental facts.
But there are also the first person facts, which, once we postulate
comp, get indirectly verifiable. Machine's theology is verifiable by
its consequences in physics.
The problem is that we have no come back to the free spiritual open-
mind that is needed in science to progress.
Absence of agreement is what makes science possible.
And the testability of theories.
We agree on this.
And large sects reject even the idea of relying on theologians;
they believe that they should only rely on their own reading of
their holy books (remember the protestant reformation?). And even
among those who do rely on a priesthood to interpret for them, I
don't see that the priesthood has communicated the God of your
theology.
They would lose their job. But if theology come back to academy and
the classroom, with the scientific attitude, they would.
By mocking theology you keep it in the hand of the exploiters of
credulity/spirituality.
Also, to be sure, I know Christians who are real atheists. They
keep the label by solidarity with the community or the family or
tradition.
I let God counts the genuine believers :)
- and you are the one that gives them support by writing that
God is really an important rational concept, using the name of
the bearded man in the sky they believe in when you really mean
something completely different.
Only the "fairy tale" aspect is different, but if you read the
theologians, you might revise that opinion.
I think you only read theologians that you agree with. I googled
"famous theologians" and find Christian and Jewish apologists, not
seekers for ur.
Googling might not be enough, or take more time.
Years ago, when I google on "snus" (oral tobacco), the 20 first
sites where the one reporting the most fake papers you can find on
"oral tobacco". Given that on god we are brainwashed 1430 years
more than on drug, it is hardly astonishing that a simple Googling
will reflect the lies instead of the serious inquirers.
I think it is your very attitude which helps the bandits to keep
"theology" as a manipulative incorrigible machine.
So do you imagine that your scientific approach to theology will
displace the priests and imams and rabbis and their holy books.
Probably, and/or change their role and make them blink.
It has never happened before.
It is a task for millennia.
But what has happened is that science has taken away more and more
of their domain,
It was in the domain at the start. Science is only a lamp, not a
truth. It is a way to look at any domain.
It is just that very often humans get attached to some theory, and are
followed by the "don't ask" attitude by those who coerce for some
statu quo.
so that eventually they may become irrelevant - little tinpot
dictators ruling on foreskins and what to eat. To which I say, good
riddance.
If you want your theories considered seriously you present them to
scientists - which is what you actually do. And it would help if
you stopped calling them theology (unless of course you aspire to a
Templeton$$).
I have presented them without the term "theology". It did not help. It
was dismissed as "theology", which it is in the greek sense.
So I was opposed by theological belief, and I realized it is more
honest and it is clearer to not hide this.
Only non-scientists have a problem with vocabulary, and indeed only
philosophers and 'atheists believers' get problem with comp's
consequences. But it looks like they are influent, and the result are
indeed ignored. But I don't think there are controversial for
'genuine' scientists (the kind capable of accepting to dialog).
Bruno
Brent
Your "God" has no overlap with the common usage of the Big Daddy
in the sky.
I think it has enough common points, I think, especially from the
points of view of comparative theology.
Of course it is an open problem if it is a Daddy or a Mommy or
even if that question makes sense. With comp, it is not clear if
X can be a person, or can be conceive by a machine as being a
person.
The common points are, that God is a X such that
- X has no name, no description,
- X is responsible for your life and lives, the biology, the
psychology, the physics,
What does 'responsible' mean? It can be simple causality: The
wind was responsible for the tree falling. Or it can imply an
ethical choice: Madoff was responsible for the deception. The
latter meaning slips in the idea that X is a person.
Or it can be a logical reason. Or something else.
- If X get a name, Lies happen and its name multiplies,
Lies happen anyway.
- X is not computable,
- X is not arithmetical,
Those may be true of lots of things.
Indeed, even on Matter. In science we don't fear to extend the
concept range. You would have been against naming 0, 1, and 2
"numbers", because "number" meant numerous at the start.
You can always add axioms, if you feel the need, but about God you
cannot be serious and hope for a categorical theory. This already
does not exist for the natural numbers structure.
- X attracts or repulse Souls,
You're using "souls" in a definition of "God"? Definitions should
be in terms of things that are better understood than those defined.
You can use first person. I was just illustrating, and you know the
definition used in comp (in UDA and AUDA).
- etc.
Then we can look in arithmetic, and around, if something match
and try questioning the (Löbian) machine, like "is God competent
(like in Plotinus, and most religion) or is God incompetent (like
with the Gnostics)?". And many other questions.
Cantor took the pain to explain to the Pope that, if he did
indeed give name to infinities, he was still unable to name the
infinity of infinities, and that he was not naming God. I don't
think he meant a "big Daddy in the sky".
But you think you're naming God as the unprovable truths of
arithmetic.
No, because I explain in detail why arithmetical truth is not
nameable by a correct arithmetical machine. At the meta level we
have tools to talk about what a machine cannot express, yet can
encounter in different senses.
Scientist modesty in machine theology forces us into agnosticism
and cautious, about the relation between Truth and Machines.
A TOE is necessary a theology, as it must let open or decide if
there is 0, or 1, or 2, ... gods, with this or that definition of
gods.
You can call it theonomy (by the assocation theonomy/theology
being "astronomy/astrology"). But that would be a sort of error
similar to lifting the theology of the correct machine on
ourself, like if we could know publicly that we are correct.
Changing the vocabulary would be like taking the words too much
seriously.
Then why not use "Zeus"?
If I use "Zeus", people will take time to understand I am talking
on "God", indeed: in a large sense of "God". They will think I want
say something special to some more particular god.
You seem to argue both ways: Really serious theology should use
"God" because really serious theologians use it.
... because everyone use it, already in a very rich and variate
number of sense. Note that in most paper I don't use it. I use
"One", in general.
But using less misleading language would be taking words too
seriously.
A more precise vocabulary on "god" does not make sense, as it would
indicate we are taking the word too much seriously. I can call it
TAO when discussing with chinese, but if I use TAO with occidental,
they will believe that I am opposing it to god, which is not a
priori the case. better to use the most common word, and just
remind we don't believe in Santa Claus (if that is necessary).
God has no name. Calling it "god" and taking that name seriously is
already an admitted error. Then computer science shows that "truth"
already obeys that axiom, from the points of view of the correct
machine, etc.
I gave some "axioms" on God, and you are the one telling me to
avoid using such notion because this or that sect says bs on it
since a long time. For me, that fact makes only more urgent to come
back to seriousness in the field, as only that will diminish the
fairy tale literalist tendency or the sectarian and the
authoritative club..
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
