Dis/Proving God: Patterns

I feel I should take a moment to explain this series of posts - I realize I probably sound a bit lecture-ish, that is not the intent. Yes, I'm a nerd, yes, I read encyclopedias as a kid, so yes, I know quite a few words. I try really hard to pick the right words to be as precise as possible, in the hopes that it will lead to less misunderstanding. Communication is a tricky thing.

Secondly, I am not writing this to preach to anyone, this exercise is for me. It is an effort to take a series of random thoughts swirling about in my brain and solidify them, organize them, and clarify them. It is an effort to understand myself, my understanding. That said.


Patterns are an important feature of scientific analysis and discovery. Science constructs mathematical models to describe the behavior of the universe, by observing and quantifying patterns. That you hold an apple up, let go, and it drops to the ground every time is a pattern which leads to an understanding of gravity. If the apple were instead to go off in a different random direction each time, it would be difficult to derive much useful information.

But there is a pattern. It falls. What's more it falls, and accelerates. And it does so with a great degree of consistency, which allows us to come up with numbers and equations to describe the effect of gravity.

Observing a pattern is not enough in itself to definitively establish something as a truth of course, but it does certainly give one reason to consider the thing further.

Apply this to religion, Can we see patterns? Consistencies?

Have you ever played the telephone game? Where one person whispers a story to one person, that person repeats it to the next person, and so on through a line of people. The last person then talls the story they heard, and it is usually nothing like the original story?

It is a good example of why gossiping is a bad idea, but it also carries an interesting idea about stories from the past. They change over time as they are told and retold. Consider the Old Testament, particularly the first 5 books, which also make up part of the Torah, and the Quran. they were written by Moses (Are we absolutely certain the texts we have are in fact penned by Moses, or is it possible they were copied by someone else, from writings Moses made?) How long after Moses wasn't alive for the events of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph ... thousands of years of history, thousands of years of people going their several ways, thousands of years of stories being passed down from one person to the next. It is not at all surprising then to find the stories have changed... drastically.

It is then very compelling when patterns, consistencies are found from one mythology to the next. I was, as I said (am, actually) a bit of a nerd. I was big into Mythology, as a youth. Greek and Norse were my favorites, but I also learned a bit of African, Babylonian, Egyptian... There are some stories which show up in nearly every human mythology.

The Creation - okay,big deal, who wouldn't wonder where they came from and make up a story?

A great Flood - Now this one is very interesting.

• The Chinese called it Gun-Yu.
• The Greeks tell of the Gods flooding the earth to destroy the wicked, leaving only Deucalion and Pyrrha alive, 
• In East Africa the Masai say it was Tumbainot, his wife, and three sons. 
• The Lakota tribe tell the same story of destroying the wicked by a flood, noting that the rainbow was given by the great spirit as a sign that there would be no more great flood.
• The Coctaw tell of a prophets sent to warn of a coming flood
• In Arizona, the Papago have a story of Coyote who foresaw a flood, gnawed down a great tree,  crawled inside and sealed it. Montezuma took coyotes warning and built a canoe. The story goes on to say that he later became wicked and tried to build a tower to heaven.m The great mystery destroyed the tower with an earthquake and change the languages so people could no longer understand animals or other tribes.

These two aren't the only two repeated themes.

Most mythologies talk of two (or more) great destructive events. One of a water event (the great flood), the second is a fire event.

Most every Mythology includes a supreme being, a father god.

Most every mythology has some reference to a great tree (yggdrasil, tree of life?)

There is nearly always a conflict between forces of good, who quietly encourage people to be kind and good, and forces of evil, who use subterfuge and deception to trick people into being selfish, contentious... evil.


Most every mythology has a story of life, death, and rebirth, usually involving an individual who is part god, part mortal (Consider Hercules as one prominent example, his father was Zeus, the Supreme God, and his Mother was a mortal woman, he performed many miraculous feats, including taking the place of Promethius, who was sentenced to eternal punishment for stealing fire from the Gods and giving it to humans. Hercules also bore the weight of the world, and descended into and returned from the underworld. Another example is Thor, Son of Odin, and Joro, who was a giantess (and whose name means "earth"), whose greatest foe, Jormungandr,  is a serpent. At Ragnarok (The apocalypse) the two slay each other. Early american mythologies includes stories one who defeated death and brought a "gospel" of peace, promising to return some day. Some of the early Spanish explorers were mistakenly thought to be this returning god, which gave them great advantage over the natives in their conquest of the Americas.

Every Mythology has an apocalypse event, in which the earth/universe is destroyed and reborn.

So which story is the real one? Are any that we have the real one? Scientifically, it would be very difficult if not impossible to come to any certain conclusion. But the consistent recurrence of certain themes should not be cast aside lightly. If a pattern emerges, it usually means something.

Dis/Proving God:Science and Faith

I think we often forget that science is not the antithesis of belief. Science often depends upon belief in order to progress.

In around 400 BC, Democritus Posited That matter was composed of atoms and empty space. He had no tools to see an atom. He was acting on belief. And educated belief, based on observation and keen analysis, but a belief nonetheless.

In 1803 John Dalton proposed "Atomic Theory", going beyond the original hypothesis of Democritus, and Isaac Newton (1700'ish), to give detail about the role mass played in atomic composition.

In 1873 James Clerk Maxwell proposed that the empty space was in fact electric and magnetic fields. In 1894 G.J. Stoney, based on prior experiments with Cathodes rays, concluded that electron were particles.

Moving forward to 1903, and H. Nagaoka suggested that Electrons orbited positively charged particles in flat rings.

Niels Bohr in 1922 Modified this model to present electrons as orbital shells around a nucleus.

None of these individuals saw and atom, or an electron.

They acted on a belief, performed experiments observed and measured. There were times when experiments or theories were wrong. The first experiments using cathode rays to prove negatively charge particles failed. That didn't cause all of science-dom to declare electrons a myth (Though there were scientist who did not accept atomic theory as valid). Instead they reevaluated their model, discarded some theories about the properties and behavior of the particles, developed new tests, and moved forward. Electrons behavior changed from flat orbit, to spherical orbit, to sort of smeared out in a shell above a nucleus.

Today their are scientific theories, beliefs regarding other as yet undiscovered (much less seen) particles, such as the graviton - a theoretical particle responsible for gravitational force.

Belief is an entirely acceptable, even necessary facet of scientific discovery.

Religion makes an equally foolish mistake in attempting to ignore or discount science. Or basic logic.

I have on occasion asked a question, because it is one I find interesting to discuss... "How do you reconcile the Old and New Testaments? Specifically, in the Old Testament, God seems very wrathful, and quick to punish: examples include Lot's wife who was turned to salt for 'looking back'. To boys were eaten by a bear for making fun of a prophets bald headed-ness, A prophet chastises the king for not killing every man, woman, child, cow, etc... Then in the New Testament, Jesus, spend his time among sinners, inviting them to follow him, teaching everyone to love one another, and forgiving the very people who crucified him."

I have received some very thoughtful responses to this question. I have also received responses like "Who are you to reply against God?" and "They don't need to be reconciled". If I as a religious person, see a discrepancy in scripture, or teachings, etc... It does not prove that God doesn't exists, but it does say that there is an error either in the scripture/teaching, an error in my understanding of the scripture/teaching, or an error in my understanding of the nature and/or character of deity. To ignore the discrepancy is... blind faith... stupid faith.

So then, we accept the possibility that one or more deity may or may not exist.We recognize that, as we have insufficient resources to prove any case, we must therefore consider all possibilities. That doesn't mean we believe all possibilities, but we accept that each individual has the right to believe as they will. We respect the beliefs of others, seek common ground where possible, accommodate where possible.

How then can we hope to find any truth, personally or collectively. By utilizing a scientific principle of seeking patterns, commonalities, threads of truth.

Dis/Proving god:The Facts

On the topic of deity, one must start with what it known, and from there move to what is most likely, given available evidence.

To begin with, there are three possibilities, one and only one of which is true:

1. There is no god. (The atheist belief)
2. There is exactly one god. (The monotheist belief)
3. There is more than one god. (The polytheist belief)

It is notable that the last two are not as straightforward as many think. For instance. God vs Allah. Is one right and the other wrong/false? Or are both referring to the same one god? Or Are they both real, and separate? Dueling it out in some great astral chess game in which we are all pawns? The latter scenario takes what are generally thought to be beliefs systems of type 2 and defines them as type three.

Likewise many type 3 belief systems could also in fact be type 2. Some view Hinduism as having many - even millions of gods and goddesses, others say there is only one deity, that the "many" are merely different manifestations of the same "one". For other multi-deity belief systems, such as Greek and Norse mythology for instance, It is possible that these system were originally a single god system, but over time, the stories began to change, and the one being was re-imagined as multiple beings, perhaps to make it easier to rationalize what the believers saw as behavioral discrepancies in said deity.

Similarly one could argue that monotheistic systems performed the same process in reverse. To determine which way such a process went, one would need clear timelines for the various stories so that one could which were closer to the source stories, and which were more altered re-tellings.

In the absence of concrete evidence, we must assume that all three of the above possibilities are equally likely.

Some would claim that there is concrete evidence - Dinosaur bones for instance, which prove that the world wasn't made in seven days as the Old Testament claims. This portion of the "Old Testament" is a key part of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faith. But all this proves is that the biblical claim that the earth was made in seven days is either incorrect or misunderstood. It is possible the biblical telling is meant as more poetry than prose. It is also possible that the story was altered over the years of telling and retelling (what we have was either written by Moses, or by someone who heard it from Moses, making it at least one re-telling from Moses, and possibly more. But who did Moses hear it from? It could have been re-told and altered for several generations by the time it got to him).

Another possibility is that the writer or original teller (God?) may not have been talking about earth days (What is a day to someone who isn't from our Earth?) According to the Genesis telling of the story, The Sun, Moon and Stars don't come into play until the fourth day, suggesting that it wasn't earth day that was being used as the measure of time.

"But if the bible is imperfect or incorrect, then there must not be a God" right? Again, this is not proof of the nonexistence of God, rather it is proof that some theories about God are incorrect. The fact the the bible, prophets, and the world are imperfect leaves several possibilities in which God exists:

1. God is imperfect.
2. God does not micromanage.
3. Imperfection is part of the design.
4. We have an incorrect understanding of the word "perfection" where deity is concerned.

(typically about this time someone goes on a rant about religious people and their double-speak. This isn't doublespeak. It is merely the nature of language. Language is imprecise and fluid. Meaning changes over time, and from one person to another. The goal is to reach beyond the syllables to the personal meaning. Real communication isn't speaking at each other, it is understanding each other.)

So, an objective review of the facts reveals that the facts neither categorically prove, nor categorically disprove the existence of God. What then are we left with? Speculation. Theory. Belief. Hope. Faith. And "personal science"

Dis/proving God: Logic, Anecdotes and Water

A man lives in the desert. He hears a story about some substance called water. He is told every living thing needs it.

"Well," says he. "I see no water here, but I do see cactus. And cactus is a living thing, clearly getting by without water so water must not be real."

A man from New Orleans, Louisiana claims  he has seen water. Furthermore, he knows from personal experience that water boils when it reaches a temperature of 212 degrees F (100 C). Another man from Alma, Colorado claims he has seen water and furthermore knows that water boils at 193 F (89 C).

Each accuses the other of having "false water", contaminated water or "not the real water". Our desert dweller hears of this and declares it further proof that water isn't real, and that these two gentleman are just a couple of crazies, making things up.

The above is more parable than anecdote, so don't try to analyze it too deeply. It is meant to be as absurd as it sounds.

Given the relative improbability of proving or disproving the existence of God through hard evidence, we fall back to anecdote. But as you can see, this is very problematic, and the conclusions are likely wrong due limited information, personal bias, or any number of other factors.

The debate between New Orleans and  Alma, for instance isn't about one being right  and the other wrong. They have simply failed to understand one characteristic of water, namely the boiling point varies with altitude. At sea level water boils at 212 Farenheit in New Orleans. Alma Colorado is not at Sea level, it is 10,000 feet above sea level. And at that altitude, water boils at 193 degrees Farenheit.

And this is the problem with claiming God does or does not exist based on anecdote.

"Bad things happen to good people therefore there is no God"

"I witnessed a miracle therefore this is a God"

"One person is miraculously saved from death by God, and a child is killed senselessly, therefore either God is the biggest jerk ever, or he doesn't exist."

"Religious people have done violent things, and caused terrible wars, therefore there is no God."

"I prayed and felt something special therefore there is a God." or more specifically, "I prayed and felt something special about a specific religion, or leader, therefore there is a God, and this is his one and only truth."

"People of lots of different faiths claim to have had spiritual experiences letting them know their respective faith is the one and true faith. Clearly they can't all be the one true faith, therefore there is no God."

These conclusions are all various forms of logical fallacy. None of these anecdotes individually or together definitively, conclusively, scientifically justify a logical conclusion that deity does or does not exist.

They may be sufficient to disprove certain claims regarding the nature, character or motive of deity. But that is all. So, from a perspective of logic, rather than attempting to discredit deity or claim absolutely the existing of deity, it seems a rational person seeking to apply scientific principles would do better to consider the alternatives, rule out the impossibilities, identify the improbabilities, accept the uncertainties and consider the possibilities.

Women in the military, and re-addressing heroes.

I've been seeing lots of posts and likes and kudos and news acclamation for two women who just successfully graduated rangers school.

Perhaps I am in the wrong to feel so, but the news saddens me a bit. In my - perhaps sexist -  mind women were still somehow above that.

That sounds like am either dissing women, or dissing our military - I don't mean to. I have the utmost respect and admiration for those who choose to serve in the role of protector, defender. Some of my favorite people and stories include Captain Moroni.

and the 2000 Sons of the people of Ammon.

War and conflict are an unfortunate part of human existence. But while it is one thing to  have to defend life, liberty, family and freedom, it is quite another to seek for blood. For some reason - right or wrong - in my mind, the graduation of these two women and consequent talk of the changing role of women in the front lines of military - viewed by the media as a step forward for women... to me feels more like a loss. Men have, it seems, already in large part embraced a baser nature, a nihilistic bloodthirstiness, but... now women succumb to it as well?

This lead me to think about a comment I had seen and replied to quite some time ago, on a video about Esther, and some other women who were being compared to her - her quality of courage specifically...

The individual's comment expressed disdain for the video, implying a sexist quality, as  the "courageous women" were shown putting on pretty clothes, make-up and jewelry. If the video had been about a man or men, they would have been shown strapping on swords and armor. Getting ready for battle, the poster noted.

I responded by saying "I think the idea was to have each one mirroring Esther, and in her case, that was her preparation. It wasn't about going to battle, it was about putting her best foot forward,in spite of hopeless circumstances. Preparing by dressing in their best, is symbolic of expecting success. (Honestly, I think these women display greater courage in facing unseen, untouchable dangers, versus than taking up arms against a mortal foe)."

As I thought about that, it occurred to me that we generally have a very narrow perception of courage, of heroism. And it does revolve and mortal, physical combat. We honor those who "Sacrifice their lives to the cause", but we forget the quiet heroes who give their lives TO the cause: the Mother Theresa's, the Gandhi's, The Jonas Corona's and Ethan King's. 

So maybe we spend too much time worshiping the wrong qualities... Or maybe I'm just an old fashioned, sexist pig.

Dis/proving God: Math, Science and a Checkerboard

Imagine you live on a checkerboard, and that this "world of yours is completely sealed in by four walls and a low ceiling.

Two other people share this checkerboard with you.

One claims there is a helium atom somewhere in your checkerboard world.

The other claims there is not.

Who is right? How do we determine it?

Let's assume you have a helium detector, which can detect a single atom of helium within one checkerboard square.

You could wander around checking a few squares at random. A traditional checkerboard consists of 8x8, or 64 squares, so in each square, you have a 1 in 64 (1.6%) chance of finding the helium atom - if it in fact exists. If there are two helium atoms, your odds are even better. Twice as good in fact.

Now if the helium atom is stationary, by the time you have checked 32 squares you have a 50% chance of finding the atom. But until you have checked EVERY square, you can't be certain that there is no helium. In other words, it is actually slightly easier to prove it does exist than to prove that it doesn't. To prove it exists, you need only search until you have found one instance. To prove that none exist, you must search every square.

But just testing each square is not sufficient either. Unless the helium atom is stationary. Let's say we set up the following pattern to check every square, by traversing side to side as we move forward across the board. It would be very easy for a moving helium atom to slip past on the left side of the board while we are over on the right side.

There are a few ways I can overcome this:

1) With enough people and sensors, You can place one sensor in each row, side by side, and they can move down the rows in unison, effectively creating a net to ensure the helium doesn't slip past.

2) You  could use a net that stretches from one end to the other, and drag it across the board until I have left a single row, then I can traverse that row with my sensor.

3) You could design a sensor which will test an entire row at one time, then move across the rows from one end to the other.

4) You could design a sensor or sensor web which tests every square at once.

Now, what if instead of a 2 dimension checkerboard we are talking about a three dimension cube? Now instead of 8x8=64 squares to test, you have 8x8x8=512. Probability of finding the atom in one cube is 0.2%.

To apply the strategy in 1 you would need enough people and sensors for each row and column, you have gone from needing 8 of each to 64 of each.

To apply strategy 2, you would first need to drop a net from the ceiling to reduce the search area to an 8x8x1 space, then drag the end-to-end net across to get to the single 8x1x1 column necessary.

Strategy 3 would require the same 64 sensors as strategy 1

And strategy 4 would require 512 sensors.

What of the cube is significantly bigger? 1000 x 1000 x 1000? That would be 1 billion cubes!
What if it is much, much bigger? Say 91 billion light years across(the distance across the observable universe)? There aren't enough people, enough sensors capable of creating the necessary web, nor sensors capable of spanning that mind-mindbogglingly huge distance.

And if you have never actually seen a helium atom - know nothing of it's physical makeup - how can you be certain your helium detector actually detects helium?

The same logic applies to god(/s) detection. We have an enormous space, and insufficient resources to scan said space, for a being (or beings) of unknown composition.  In fact, one could argue it is even worse, as we would also need to consider the space outside of observable space. Or the possibility that said being(/s) exist in an as yet undefined, unobserved dimension (yes, I know it sounds pretty sci-fi, but then so did spaceships and robots and glow in the dark sheep once upon a time).

Therefore, anyone who declares that there is a deity or deities, is doing so based on personal belief, and not by scientific analysis.

Anyone who declares that there is no god is doing so based on personal belief and not by scientific analysis.

We simply do not have the means to prove or disprove the existence of deity through pure scientific, mathematical process.

What is left then is speculation based on observation and interpretation of available evidence.

More on that later.

Different Flavors of Marriage

The cool and crummy thing about language (American English in particular) is that it can be fluid.

Language is really just sounds that we put together in unique ways and assign meaning. And written language is just a way to represent those sounds... without making any sound...

"Camera."

I say that word, and you have an image in your mind.

"Ball."

That one might have a couple possibilities. Without some context, you may be visualizing a spherical object, or you might be seeing people dancing.

"Fat", "Phat."

Same sound, different spellings, different meanings.

Meanings can change over time as well. "He was a killer", "That's killer".

"Marriage"

I think part of the problem with this word is that it means several different things. There are several flavors and contexts. I thought I'd take a stab at listing them. The idea is to break it up into the various separable components.

Social-Contractual - In this context, marriage is a contract between two or more people to "bind their fortunes". They agree to combine their resources toward a set of common goals. Often, but not always this includes the creation and rearing of offspring for a number of purposes, including contributing to society, maintaining a family namesake and/or legacy...

Social-Emotional - (That may not be the right title, suggestions?) In This context marriage is a... celebration of a union, of one or more... things? I am trying to leave that as open as possible to account for all cases, Such as a Man who married his dog, or a nine year old who was married to a snake (symbolically. She will still get to marry someone else when she grows up).

Civil-Legal Blanket -(Again, not sure I love the title) This represents a contract recognized by society as a sort of master contract, which saves the paperwork required to establish joint property ownership, inheritance, access to "Family" benefits etc...

Civil-Incentive - This represents a union which gains access to benefits created by the governmental unit: This would be things like child tax credits. This facet exists primarily because governments want to encourage population growth and/or child rearing activities. So they reward people for participation in the Social-Contractual facet of marriage.

Civil-Regulatory - This represents a level of governmental oversight of marriage. An example: In the early days of the United States, marriage was often a case of two people moving in together and declaring themselves married (There are still laws in some states, which establish a time frame after which cohabitation is automatically recognized as marriage after a certain duration). Then at some point, some states decided to regulate the process. Most of what I have read indicates this was sometime after the Civil war, with differing reasons given, the most common being to prevent interracial coupling, and cousin coupling.

Commercial - This facet refers to the industry built around the term "Marriage"; The dresses and tuxedoes and parties and cakes etc... It is most closely tied with the Social-Emotional aspect.But really no different than any other commercialized holiday. It is a group of industries encouraging or creating a need for their products.

Religious - This represents a contract between deity and two or more individuals. It is defined by the specific religious practice selected by the individuals. Typically in involves an agreement to set aside personal individualism in favor of familial collectivism. The join their purposes and wills together, along with that of their respective deity in accordance with laws and guidelines established by that deity.


Did I miss any?

While there are points where each of these touch one another or overlap slightly, they are in fact separable.

Do you suppose, if each had a unique name, much of current political strife could/would have ben avoided?