On 04 Apr 2014, at 11:44, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 4 April 2014 20:33, Richard Ruquist <[email protected]> wrote:
On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 1:24 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <[email protected]
> wrote:
On 4 April 2014 15:59, Samiya Illias <[email protected]> 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.
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
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Stathis Papaioannou
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