JR'S Free Thought Pages
No Gods ~ No Masters
~ No Bullshit
|
JR'S Free Thought Pages |
|
God, Dogs and Mathematics By JR, September 2025 The dyslexic atheist does not believe in Dog – Unknown source
Pie in the Sky Foreword The neo-fascist silver spoon asshole from one of the wealthiest families in South Africa, the neo-Nazi blowhard jerk Elon Musk is apparently dyslexic, at least according to one of his multiple wives. Permit me to offer a name change for this creep - Leon Skum? Inquisitive Kid Neither of my parents was religious. This was a good thing since I didn’t have to purge ambiguous, incoherent and unscientific concepts and beliefs that made no sense to the typical curious child whose world view was inherently empirical. If your five senses did not detect something such as an imaginary friend, it didn’t exist. My intelligent WW II pilot and PTSD (and lifelong alcoholic) father thought religion (in our case Christianity) was too incredibly stupid and childish as not to warrant even discussing it. But my equally intelligent loving mother [1], apparently influenced by her many Christian friends, thought it best I be baptized and then sent to Sunday school which I hated. After hedging her bets I suppose, she didn’t want me to burn in the Christian hell fires for eternity. John Lennon is on fire continuing to be barbecued in hell but the Christian fundamentalist who shot him on the streets of New York is languishing in heaven having a beer with Jesus like other good Christians fascists such as Adolph Hitler, Francisco Franco and future inductee Donald Trump. As a preschooler at the time I had a dog named Rusty which was likely my hunting and fishing enthusiast dad’s idea since my mom deemed dogs filthy beasts and would not allow canines inside our meticulously immaculate yet, modest home. My mother was a highly-organized neatness freak and I admit to having inherited this OCD obsession. One day my dog Rusty was run over by a car, an experience that I’ll never forget as his blood and internal organs were a pile of mush on the street near our home. My mother tried to console me by informing me that I will see Rusty again – in heaven. Of course like all precocious and inquisitive kids, I asked my mother what and where is this place called “heaven”? Naturally I did not get the answer that was at all intellectually satisfying; in fact her attempt at a response was lame. I needed a description and a specific destination so I could perhaps check it out. I hated Sunday school which interfered with my own plans for that day but I thought that if anyone could explain heaven it would perhaps be my Sunday school teacher. But like my mom he could not provide a satisfactory conception of “heaven” and in fact told me that since dogs don’t have “souls”, I would not see Rusty again in heaven or anywhere else. What the hell, I thought, is this immaterial thing called a soul? The Sunday school teacher’s response, being a stream of gibberish did not provide the satisfactory answer, at least for me. When I told my mother about this story that conflicted with her own, she removed me from Sunday school, much to my delight. This incident was the genesis of a lifelong scepticism regarding supernatural phenomena and the silly fairy tales of organized religion such as Christianity. In the mid 1950s when I was in grade six we still had in some cases the Lord’s Prayer and Bible Readings in our authoritarian public schools in undemocratic Canada. The separation of church and state in so-called secular states such as ours and the USA have always been farcical as the rackets called religion get a free pass on taxes and an open ended invitation to proselytize and impose their superstitious mumbo jumbo on a credulous population, especially vulnerable children. One morning after discussion with a few of my grade six classmates I decided to ask our teacher why we had the Bible readings every morning. My query was greeted with hysteria and rage by our male teacher and I was sent to the principal’s office and received the standard punishment of ten on each hand with a razor strap. This was not the first time I was strapped and it would not be the last. It was not until the early 1970s when the left wing progressive social democratic party the NDP won the 1972 provincial election in British Columbia finally dumping the long standing anti-labour pious conservative regime that barbaric corporal punishment in BC public schools would be abolished. When I was in high school my best friend and fellow egghead Rick and I would discuss our possible futures, religion and much else on our long walks to school – which we hated. Or intuition and experience up to that time informed us that all religious and other supernatural claims such as gods, ghosts and goblins were false. When I discovered one of Bertrand Russell’s many beautifully written books Why I’m not a Christian in the school library we were provided with compelling and knock down arguments refuting all religion and other superstitious rubbish. How the powerful and influential Catholic Church in our home town in Northern BC had not purged this book from our school library remains a mystery. Russell (1872-1970), in addition to Carl Sagan, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, the mathematicians Raymond Smullyan and John Allen Paulos [2] and dozens of other godless intellectuals I have read voraciously and continue to do so. How religion survives given five centuries of the Renaissance, Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution is astounding to me. My only explanations are the obvious facts of widespread human stupidity, credulity, debilitating indoctrination and the failure of our schools to implement logic, scepticism and critical thinking programs despite the efforts of myself and many others. At University I studied Mathematics and specialized in probability theory at the graduate level. Science is almost entirely empirical and inductive whereas Mathematics is primarily deductive starting from intuitive self-evident premises referred to as axioms and postulates. In elementary algebra for example we have axioms of real numbers such as x + y = y + x and x(y + z) = xy + xz and in religion we have the dubious premise “God exists” without any coherent conception/definition of “god” other than his counter intuitive qualities of omnipotence, omniscience and infinite omnipresence. One ought to naturally ask why given these superman attributes, is this so-called “god” continually asleep at the wheel while the world is mired in human stupidity, conflict, greed, assholes, grinding poverty, grotesque inequalities, homelessness, UFC, ecosystem collapse, species extinction and endless wars (throughout history most of them religiously based). This big daddy who resides somewhere in the infinite cosmos apparently created this massive infinity of universes but then without collapsing into an infinite regress of causation, who or what created this “God”? But will simple logical fallacy convince the devout believer such as the professional athletes who believe that their Xian god is responsible for everything pointing to the sky daddy after every baseball home run or stolen base. But then why is this behaviour absent after every strike out or fumbled ground ball? There’s that pesky “why” question again! Mathematicians and scientists can introduce the infinite in many of their cosmological theories and for mathematics such as Calculus but what about the past when those same people such as Giordano Bruno would be tortured and burned at the stake? Napoleon apparently read the magnum opus cosmological treatise on celestial mechanics by brilliant scientist and mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace. A famous dialogue and query by Napoleon Bonaparte and Laplace was why he (Laplace) had not mentioned God in his massive work on the system of the cosmos. Laplace, who incidentally was a former professor to Napoleon, answered bluntly, "Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là," which translates to "I had no need of that hypothesis." In other words, the supernatural is superfluous and religion is antithetical to Laplace's science, atheistic stance and his belief that the physical sciences should not be influenced by religious faith and other irrational drivel. Anyone who has studied advanced Calculus and specifically Differential Equations will surely recall the agony of trying to fully understand “Laplace Transforms”. For those sufficiently curious, for example, there is the Laplace transform formula from the aforementioned courses in Differential Equations and Integral Calculus:
Reference for math geeks: byjus.com/maths/laplace-transform/ When it comes to trashing the delusions and horrors of the bullshit racket called religion, it’s tough to beat George Carlin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-e2NDSTuE He had some vitriolic comments about assholes as well, although without defining what an “asshole” is. But doesn’t everyone know what an asshole is? I was about ten years old when my WW II RCAF vet PTSD dad and hopeless alcoholic warned me about them on one of our many hunting and fishing trips when he said: “One day you will discover there are more horses’ asses that horses”. I knew all about and hated bullies but it wasn’t long before I understood what an asshole is. Carlin didn’t define what they were but it isn’t really necessary. Here is George on “ASSHOLES”: Notes: [1] I still miss my incredible mom who despite the challenges of living with my angry alcoholic father, lived to the age of 94 and there’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of her. Related further reading on www.skeptic.ca https://skeptic.ca/Living_in_a_FUBAR_World.htm [2] John Allen Paulos, professor of mathematics at Temple University, is arguably the best mathematics writer on the planet. Since reading one of his first books Innumeracy about 20-25 years ago, like Bertrand Russell I have read every book he has published before and since. He writes with a wonderful sense of humor flair and insight. I highly recommend him for those who have struggled with mathematics in the past and may despise the subject because of the didactic manner in which the subject was taught. Two of his books have the appealing titles of Mathematics and Humor and another A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market. I recommend them all. You can find a short list of his books here. Paulos undoubtedly has been influenced by Bertrand Russell, one of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of the twentieth century. He alludes to Russell often in his writings. In his latest book Irreligion he employs his math and logical skills to skewer and demolish with great wit and aplomb the claims of religion. Even though the religious arguments he dismantles and demolishes are not new, his inimitable clarity, wit and sense of humor confer upon them a unique approach. John Allen Paulos is truly funny. Despite the title, the Temple University math professor doesn't actually discuss mathematics much, which might be a relief to any numerically challenged readers who feel intimidated by anything mathematical. In this short primer Paulos tackles 12 of the most common arguments for the existence of God, including the argument from design, the idea that a "moral universality" points to a creator God, the notion of first causes and the argument from coincidence, among others. Interview with John Allen Paulos on Point of Inquiry: http://www.pointofinquiry.org/john_allen_paulos_irreligion/
For Home:
|
