Could it be that God is . . .

like an irrational number?

Never repeats
Never ends
Is real
but cannot be expressed in rational terms

What say you?

Although intangible, numbers (irrational or otherwise) do at least conceptually exist. That other 'theory' doesn't. ;-)

:hi:

Hey!! What a friendly bunch.

But we try to put on a good face for the newcomers!

Jackass:-)

Well I'm used to dealing with the freeconservatives idiots so I'm sure I'll be able to get much more open and interesting dialogue going with you guys!

People conceive of a God.
Therefore God exists, as a concept, if nothing else.

To me a concept is something that can be modelled.

(Who I think are wonderful, by the way.)

But as a once-upon-a-time philosophy major, I think a concept is something that can be conceived.

I don't know that one can truly conceive God, since our own scope of perception is limited and God's is not. I would say that "God" is actually a place-holder that we use to fill the gaps in our own understanding.

also there are a number of things that make infinities go away. (Like l'Hópitals Rule)

God can certainly be used as a place holder like that, but then, many use it for a fair bit more.

and by that I mean

Is the infinite set of all fractions somehow bigger than the infinite set of all whole numbers? Or is an infinity an infinity?

however, it is more like infinity divided by itself = 2 , but do the sum slightly differently, and it will equal 3, for example.

Though it is probably more accurate to say that there is just one type, but it does not obey the identity axiom.

(Identity axiom: All A is A. In other words, 2 = 2 for any choice of 2)

Gimme a moment, and I will think up some examples.

Case 1:

lim x approaches 0 for

ln (x) / e^(1/x)

= infinity / infinity

= 0

However, Case 2:

lim x approaches infinity for

e^x / x^2

= infinity / infinity

= infinity


------------------------------------------------------------

These were some basic examples, don't worry about how the values were got, but it makes my point, in the first case, dividing infinity by itself gives you zero, in the second, it remains unchanged.

In other words, infinity does not equal infinity.

Hope that makes sense.

sort of controversy about this issue, in the math world. Has this controversy been resolved (or did I misread)?

One more of those lovely paradoxes.

Perhaps God is only a place-holder. But my hope is that S/he's bigger -- and even more real -- than we are.

then can't it be expressed in rational terms, given that our conception of things is based up rationality?

"Irrational" in mathematic terms means "can't be expressed as a ratio"

"Irrational" in mundane terms means "not subject to rationalism"

They're broadly related, but it's a bit off-target to equate them.

But stuff like that is still good to know, nonetheless.

"God is a concept by which we measure our pain." Says it all, really...

Looking at my babies felt, to me, like being touched by God. There was a sense of awe.

was that billions of years of exploding stars had culminated in the production of this little, pink thing that was looking out upon the world with a new, fresh mind; and that one day would take my car out without permission...

outside of your body . . .

yes, and driving your car . . .

:hi:

I can't wait to tell that to my wife. Thank you! :hi:

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that financially kids act almost identically to black holes. Wherever they are in the world and whatever age they are, they will ALWAYS suck the cash from your wallet at a rate that steadily increases up to a point that I like to call the singularity and then suddenly they have enough money one day to pay for you to go into a nursing home.

:toast:

We can posit all kinds of things and say that God is like them in some way or another, but the breakdown occurs when we consider the fact that we have no evidence that God exists and, if he happens to exist, we have no evidence that he's like anything in his Creation, so all analogies are doomed to failure.

Certain theists are very fond of saying, for example, that God must have created the universe because the universe can't always have existed and can't have spontaneously come into being. "Well then," we ask, "where did God come from?"

"Oh," they say. "He's God. He's always been there."

That's the fallacy of special pleading, by the way, not to mention circular reasoning.

Let's pause to reflect on the words of Xenophanes, handed down to us by Philip K. Dick (himself no stranger to ruminations about the divine):

In this context we can take "mortal creatures" to mean "that which is created," so it applies equally to human, animals, trees, rocks, and irrational numbers.

In short, if you already believe in God anyway, and if you're looking for a colorful way to refer to him in metaphor, then your irrational numbers idea is no worse than most other apologetic work (and substantial better than that of Lee Strobel or Josh MacDowell, for example).

But don't expect it to be convincing or very interesting to anyone who doesn't already believe.

I'm just tossing out an idea to fellow travelers. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything.

I am the Lorentz Reference Point. I am the focus of the universe, 'round which you all spin. I am the Center, without which things fall apart, loosing mere anarchy upon the world.

You don't want to loose the blood-dimmed tide, do you? Well do you?


Anyway, I'd hoped with the end of my previous post to convey that your choice of metaphor is at least as good as other apologetic constructs. Strobel uses the image of a bear in a trap to describe humanity's inability to comprehend God's choice to allow suffering to persist. I find his metaphor naive and insulting.

Yours, in contrast, has the benefit of not telling anyone to shut up (on the grounds that we don't see the big picture). As such, your metaphor is superior to Strobel's. I grant, however, that a favorable comparison to Strobel isn't much of a compliment...

I really hate it. I think people have every right to rail at God when they're suffering. And to laugh when they're happy.

I hope -- and it's only hope -- that it will all make sense in the end. But I certainly can't say it does now. Faith is like walking a tightrope, for me. I'm always just on the verge of falling off. But I seem to need to keep putting my feet forward.

"If one day you were to see God, you would not know what you were looking at."

I think God is pretty much as described in the Bible.

Thanks!

I'm a Christian but if I had to pick a second favorite religion, it would be Wicca. It seems in Wicca you have a male and female God but other than that, things get a bit sketchy. You can believe just about anything you want about them and all is well. Definitely not true with the God of the Bible.

Mind you, people have to come up with SOME words for what they see when they sit back and marvel at the wide realm of creation.

But yes, for the Christians at least, that is certainly not going to be called an invalid viewpoint.

leave this thread before I just offend everyone!

you've offended at least one person.

:D

I, myself, am a hard-core Monist, which is indiscernible from an atheist. My wife says Monism is just a way to be an atheist and believe in god at the same time. :hi:

Don't worry about offending anyone. Just be honest, and if anyone is offended by your honesty, then let them work their personal problems out on their own time.

:hug:

This is the R/T forum. You can't swing a dead Jesus around without hitting someones nerve.

Oops.

:)

:rofl:

"Rational" in number terminology does not mean the same as "rational" when it comes to logic and the question of god.

Also, irrational numbers:

* Can be used to compute real results.
* Are inanimate.
* Cannot create, love, or forgive.

Etc.

The kind you insert into an equation in order to test/prove it, but their values are never known to the modeller. Those numbers - by definition at least - are not inanimate. The rest of what you said stands though. }(

Now I'm going to have to ask my daughter-- math geek extraordinaire -- if you're pulling my leg.

Magic numbers are used by scientists to prove things like M-theory where otherwise it would be impossible (how do you prove the universe has more than 4 dimensions when you don't know the other dimensions' parameters for instance). They are used in next-level shiznit. They're kinda like an unbelieveably complex 'Find X' equation from what I've gathered. Other than that and they're a mystery to me.

They're used to wrapping their minds around really unwieldy concepts.

I suppose if you're able to grasp quantum physics then God must be a fairly easy concept to come to terms with!

Yes, QT makes other things easy, mainly because it gets you thinking in a way wholly unaligned with your physical experience.


Wow again. People saying accurate things about people they have never met is a very, very unusual thing to see, alright!



-----------------------------------------------------
Now I think about it, it has only been about a month since I was last suprised - turns out there really were tachyons!

Now THEY are truly bizzare.

(I still can't do QT calculations though, but I am young enough that that does not matter)
-------------------------------------------------------
For those who don't know, I am an eager scientist in training, to specialise in QT, GR, & hopefully the UFT/GUT/String in further years. (But I have been 18 for less than two months now)

never end.

I have a son your age, who's still figuring himself out, and a daughter a few years older who's loved math since she was a toddler. But she also likes to make things, so she's going in the engineering direction rather than into abstract math.

Can't please everybody.

though, I must admit that if both irrational numbers AND God were incomprehensible in terms of their existence to a person, then to that person they would be similar in such manner!

I see what you mean now!

It is nice to be able to 'get' other people. To me, however, there is nothing that special about irrational, or even imaginary numbers.

I am not limited in that particular way. My ignorance of higher math is almost limitless, as a matter of fact.

I was a bit disappointed not to be able to get into the "in the arms of Jesus" discussion in any substantial way before it was locked. So here goes!

You know that old fable about the five blind men feeling an elephant, with each one describing it differently? I think that is what is at work here. We think we are separated by so much, but really we are all attempting to describe the same elephant.

The "in the arms of Jesus" OP is horrified that grown people conceive of each and every child as being in the arms of Jesus after death because it is not logical. Logic is not part of faith. And it is definitely not part of grief. I once lost a student who was six. She had open heart surgery that went sour. At her funeral the priest said "she is sitting in the lap of Jesus right now" and it was incredibly comforting to imagine that, because the reality was that she was laid out in her casket right in front of us. Is it a metaphor for spiritual continuation, for the sense of overwhelming love we hope to find in the afterlife? I don't know.

The fascinating thing to me is how this argument (is there a God/afterlife) is probably the oldest in the world. Well, maybe after "why you look at other women, Thor?" And after billions of words written and hundreds of trillions spoken we are absolutely no closer to solving it than we ever have been. Because the truth is none of us know. In this area, only fools are certain.

you think the thread got looked? It seemed pretty civil to me.

I think that fable of the elephant and the blind men must have been in the back of my mind when I was writing one of my posts -- the one about an ant not being able to conceive of a human.

And then something Random Australian said made me start thinking about numbers.

Funny how the mind works.

religion 'garbage' and a 'fairy tale' is that the latter was actually supposed to be a useful metaphor :blush:

BUT - this quote chases you from that thread! "Funny how the mind works" when of course "funny" means "breath-takingly fascinating"

And it was completely inadvertent, I promise. I never (well, hardly ever) plagiarize atheists.

:D (kidding) :P:)

And another example of how people can read whatever they want into posts.

Nah, she's imaginary.

use that as a serious point, but I've alreasy tripped you upthread....

Edit: here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=76022&mesg_id=76041

if you're on the right track.

Try this excersise: find something that when multiplied by itself = -1

Remember, -2 * -2 = 4
:) (As in, a negative times a negative is positive)

Some of the most useful math ever created.

You'll have to tell me more.

:think:

(Disclaimer: If this example makes no sense, then write it out, but just putting 'squared' where you see "^2")

When does x^2 + 4 = 0 ?

ALL real x^2 is greater than zero
4 is greater than zero
Therefore x^2 + 4 is greater than zero for all real x

Oh NO! said people, (because not bieng able to solve these makes life difficult)
So people 'made up' a number, "i" with the special property that i^2 = -1 <-<-<-- this bit used later!

So, now we go back to that equation, and use x = 2i

x^2 + 4 = 0
(2i)^2 + 4 = 0

4(i^2) + 4 = 0

(and we said above that i^2 = -1 )
4*-1 + 4 = 0
-4 + 4 = 0
(true)

So now we have sovled something that was previously impossible to do.

Okay, I'll go with that.

Yes, indeed, God could be like an imaginary number, doing things that are otherwise impossible to do.


I never knew an atheist could have such useful religious insights.

There you go again. O8)

about God a fair bit.

There is more about the imaginary numbers than that, but you can't express it except in math.

The closest stab I can get is "Completely incomprehensible, not due to its complexity, but the fact that it modifies things in a way contrary to all physical human experience"

So to speak.

Pretty pictures.
http://www.fractal-recursions.com

I once wasted an entire college semester generating fractals on the college's VAX 11/750 and DEC VT-320 monitors using ReGIS graphics.

Fractals have practical purposes too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals#Applications

The last time I consciously saw fractals, my second child had had to draw a bunch of them in 7th grade math. Believe me, they didn't look like this.

Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bade thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, wooly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little lamb, I’ll tell thee;
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a lamb,
He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child;
I a child, and Thee a Lamb,
We are called by His Name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Little lamb, God bless thee!

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire in thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art?
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand, and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb, make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

For the Blake.

Sigh. One of my favorites.

What you gon' do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that trunk?
I'ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
What u gon' do with all that ass?
All that ass inside them jeans?
I'm a make, make, make, make you scream
Make u scream, make you scream.
Cos of my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps. (Check it out)

on edit: Oh, wait--wrong forum!

dump, dump, dump


:puke:

(But I mean that only in the very nicest way.)

Just wait and see if I continue to serve as the center of your universe!

Now I have the proof.

that's GWB.

Sorry, orrex, to demote you.

influence or whether everyone is just hitting a "vibe", but this has been one of the more enjoyable religion threads I've been part of. Thank you very much!

And that was a nice bonus because I've been having some stresses lately. So thanks to you and everybody else.

people's minds?

Zero. :)

It is nature and the cosmos that never repeat in exactly the same way like an irrational number, a chaotic system. Yet there is order in the chaos, fractal beauty within the randomness.

There's always one party pooper in every crowd.

But if God did exist, I think he/she/it would be unquantifiable as an irrational number is. Though, if I had my choice, I would assign to God the number Phi (1.618...), the divine proportion, but it seems that nature has already taken that number. ;)

;-)

irrational numbers

rational numbers

even in evil

(that will make you think)

I mean God created evil

God created free will

God is in everything

What if evil is the absence of God -- more of a vacuum. . . an absence, rather than a presence?

What if evil is more like a black hole?

I'm just feeling my way here. . . .

Main Entry: pi·ous
Pronunciation: 'pI-&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin pius
1 a : marked by or showing reverence for deity and devotion to divine worship

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/pious

If God is like an irrational number, and pi is an irrational number (and transcendental as well), then it makes sense that being pious means being godly.

You've obviously been inspired.