Monthly Archive for October, 2010

The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 9

Published by davinci on October 30, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

(Part 8 is here.)

I have written above that the quality of the theological arguments for monotheism are so poor that Buddhists (and according to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha himself) had already anticipated a logical problem that monotheistic theologies cannot even in principle deal with, before the two major monotheistic religions in the world today even existed. In any religion that asserts the existence of a God and a Devil, both of whom are greater in knowledge and power than mere humans, it is necessarily the case that mere humans cannot distinguish between them.

If the errors in theological arguments can be easily spotted by anyone trained in logic, and no religion has ever been able to produce evidence supporting its claims from a source outside of the religion’s influence, one might ask why it is that most people throughout history have believed in religion, and most still do today… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 16
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 10
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument for religion as a human creation, part 1
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 12
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 14
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 8

Published by davinci on October 29, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 7 is here.)

Indeed, a demonstration of omniscience to a being who is not himself or herself omniscient is impossible. As limited humans, we have no way even in principle of verifying whether or not another being is omniscient. This is a problem that the early Buddhists were already aware of, and they made use of it in their arguments and polemics against theistic religions… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 13
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 16
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 7
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 15
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 7

Published by davinci on October 28, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 6 is here.)

It is obviously impossible for me to point out the errors in each and every argument asserting that there is evidence in support of some religion, since there are an infinite number of such arguments. But anyone who has studied religions broadly can see that apologetics arguments fall into categories, and that entire categories can be dismissed based on errors in logic, a lack of understanding of statistics, or ignorance, whether of the actual context or meaning of an underlying text, or of some specific facts about the real world… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 18
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 8
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 2
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 16
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 6

Published by davinci on October 27, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 5 is here.)

I wrote above that it is a “deflection” for a believer to say that God (i.e., his or her particular God) is not to be tested. A supernatural being can certainly choose to behave in a way that renders him or her indistinguishable from a figment of human imagination, and God can certainly order His minions to do so. The problem with this reasoning, however, comes from the other side.

Those Protestants who denounce the Roman Catholic Marian apparitions as Satanic skullduggery simply do not take their logic far enough… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 5
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 15
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 3
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 7
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 4
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 5

Published by davinci on October 26, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 4 is here.)

This lack of external evidence for supernatural beings is not restricted to the Abrahamic family of religions. Many Hindus consider the Buddha to have been one of the avatars of the god Vishnu. In Buddhist texts, however, it is Vishnu who submitted to the Buddha and became a protector of the Buddha-Dharma, although he is not an important Buddhist deity in areas where Buddhists are not in contact with Hindus. If either of these beliefs is true, Vishnu could simply indicate this directly to the followers of the wrong religion. But he does not do so. Instead, there is no evidence whatsoever that he has any ability to act outside of the sphere of influence of the people who believe in him, and except through them. And, naturally, he never says or does anything that is contrary to the beliefs of those speaking or acting on his behalf… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 6
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 15
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument for religion as a human creation, conclusion and overview
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 4
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 4

Published by davinci on October 25, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

(Part 3 is here.)

The point is that the actions attributed to Gabriel by Islam are remarkably indistinguishable from those of a mythological character. The argument can likewise be applied in the other direction: if Christianity is true, Islam would be finished if Gabriel had simply appeared during the Hajj at Mecca and told the Muslims that they are mistaken. Regardless of whether you believe Christian or Muslim claims about the archangel Gabriel, there is simply no evidence whatsoever that he exists outside of the imaginations of those who are supposed to have interacted with him… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 5
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 3
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 10
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 15
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The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 3

Published by davinci on October 24, 2010 in reflections on religion and religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

(Part 2 is here.)

There are a number of important differences between exotic animals and supernatural beings that make it reasonable to acknowledge the existence of the former without likewise accepting the existence of the latter. For one thing, we have direct evidence of tigers, which anyone can independently verify. We have photographs and video recordings of these animals, and like many people I have seen actual tigers with my own eyes. No one has ever produced an image of a deity or an angel, except through the medium of art as produced by human hands. Historically, sightings of tigers were recorded independently in different cultures, and yet the descriptions of these creatures were remarkably similar. The same cannot be said of any supernatural being… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 6
  2. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 4
  3. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 15
  4. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 5
  5. The geographic and temporal spread argument, part 11
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Why Computer Scientists Should Adopt Open Notebook Science

Published by davinci on October 23, 2010 in ★grads.net, academic writings and open notebook science. 0 Comments

I wrote this essay using MediaWiki (formerly at the address http://stargrads.net/wiki) as a proof-of-concept to see if I can write an essay or a paper online. Since I’m removing MediaWiki from this web site, I have copied its contents below… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. Open notebook science
  2. An essay on open notebook science
  3. Overcoming my writer’s block, part 5: writing about open notebook science in high school
  4. My depression in Waterloo, part 3: my Master’s degree in computer science
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Old Help:Setup wiki

Published by davinci on October 23, 2010 in ★grads.net and programming and technical issues. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The content of this post used to live at http://stargrads.net/wiki/Help:Setup, and described how I had set up the software for this web site. I am archiving the contents of that page here for the reasons described below. It probably won’t interest anyone except for nerds… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. Wikindx macro plug-in for WordPress
  2. Using the Ajaxified Expand Post Now plug-in with Rob Miller’s Footnotes plug-in
  3. Using jsMath with WordPress, bbPress, and Wikindx
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Removing cruft and re-organisation

Published by davinci on October 23, 2010 in ★grads.net. 0 Comments Tags: , .

When I first made this web site, I didn’t know what it was going to be about. I threw together a lot of tools that I wanted to experiment with. Most of these became unused after some time, and are just taking up space and bandwidth.

I have a much better idea now of where this web site is headed. Therefore, I’m going to be doing some trimming and re-organising this weekend. It should be much more sleek and focused afterwards. In the mean time, many things will probably be broken.

– davinci 12184

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