deconstructing the god equation
I swear, PZ Myers gets the most absurd and entertaining spam on the web. Sure, I’ll get something from stark raving lunatics ranting about how Adam and Eve committed an act even worse than incest because she was made from his rib and was thus his genetically altered clone, and so the human species should never breed and allow itself to go extinct lest we pollute our gene pool. And yes, it did come with giant, badly formatted font that lets you know the author forgot to take his medication before typing it out. But never have I gotten the proof of the careful and deliberate planning behind the creation of the Earth and the Moon in a physics equation…
Basically, the attributed authors measured something about circular stone monuments created by a Neolithic culture in ancient England, threw in the frequency of a hydrogen atom’s transition in space, a constant which represents all the numbers in a base ten numerical system in decimal form and arranged it into a formula. So we’re supposed to take the frequency of hydrogen’s transition line in a vacuum at 1,420.4058 MHz and multiply it by π, then divide the resulting mess by the frivolous Ω constant of 0.0123456789 which has absolutely nil to do with any other mathematical or physical constant. After we do that, we’re supposed to multiply the result by an esoteric conversion factor of 0.82966 for the answer to equal to the speed of light in a vacuum, making the end formula work out thusly…
c = Hl × π / Ω = 1,420.4 MHz × π / 0.0123456789 = 361,266.01 × 0.82966 = 299,797.961 km/sec?
Okay, so if we tweak a few decimal places when doing the math, we’ll eventually get very close to the speed of light with the help of the included fudge factor. But note the subtle moment in which MHz magically turned into kilometers per second. And the pointlessness of this entire exercise, which only proves that somebody could dream up a bizarre and very inelegant way in which you could make some constants equal the speed of light with arbitrary decimals thrown in to make it look like a legitimate formula and get the result you want. How can this possibly show any sort of evidence of intelligent design of the Earth and the Moon? This is just plain, old numerology that’s not even flimsily disguised. Take the numbers for a chapter and verse in the Bible, divide it by your height, multiply it by the weight of your third grade music teacher, raise that to the power of the number of props used by Carrot Top and gain a profound insight into the nature of all creation? I somehow doubt it.
The e-mail credits a trio of unrelated people with combing the ruins of Stonehenge and other megalithic sites, one of whom is Christopher Knight, the author of a New Age book which heavily borrowed from Dan Brown’s ancient conspiracy theory craze. It was supposed to fuse Freemasonry, Christianity, modern science and just about every crazy conspiracy theory out there into a profound explanation of Western religious history and was very swiftly dismissed as lunacy by experts, albeit in much more polite language. Could he have tried to play physicist? Maybe. Did he have it sent out across the web? I’m not so sure since PZ seems to be the only one who got this e-mail. Nevertheless, I thought it merited a post to serve as a warning to those who want to send science bloggers something offering proof of the supernatural, purporting to debunk evolution, or show a real live alien peeping into people’s windows. We will read it. We will look at the evidence. We will do the math. We will ask questions. And then we’re going to tear those flimsy attempts at playing scientist apart because we’re evil, merciless science bloggers, and that’s how we roll.
You know I get questioning the science. Seriously. Fundamentalist Christians are so eager to find “proof” that they will latch on to half researched science. But 90% of the articles Ive read on this “God Equation” are cultic angry atheists using manipulative language, ad hominem arguments, and infered pressure of peer-pressure threats to try to force a conclusion through intimidation. I’m tired of all of the agenda based religious extremists (including atheists who often are the MOST hostile and blinded by their religious subjectivity) trying to force their opinions over objective study. If there is data that indicates the possibility of an engineered universe, I want to look at it objectively without all of the baggage and an hominem inference. Who knows it might lean toward a Gene Rodenbery reality.
Unfortunately since disproving the existence of a sentient creator being seems to be the primary motivation of most self admited atheists, they turn out to be the worst scientists in that they have lost their objectivity.
Regardless of whether those of us who did a fact check on this equation are nice or not, it will still be bunk, and I find the idea of patting people on the head for producing bunk and trying to present it as science rather disturbing. It’s like giving someone high marks for effort even though the execution was a total failure. In the real world, enthusiasm only gets you so far. If it gets you anywhere at all.
“…including atheists who often are the most hostile and blinded by their religious subjectivity”
Let’s see, where to begin? Atheists can’t be considered religious because they don’t have an official canon, they have no holy books, no temples and hence, atheism can’t qualify as a religion. To say that they’re the most blinded by their subjectivity is to say that while fundamentalists latch on to anything in desperation of their proof, atheists who always demand more research and more science in hotly debated topics are just as bad. It simply doesn’t make any sense.
“If there is data that indicates the possibility of an engineered universe, I want to look at it objectively…”
Newsflash, this was an objective look. This equation is half-baked numerology being passed off as fact with no proof for why it showed any sort of design in the cosmos. It’s nothing new or meaningful and it’s been tried countless times before. People do and say ridiculous things and all we do when we pat them on the head in reply is encourage them to do more of the same.
“Unfortunately since disproving the existence of a sentient creator being seems to be the primary motivation of most self admited atheists…”
Just because you repeat something said by every airheaded televangelist enough times, it won’t become true. Atheists are skeptics who want real evidence and have gotten none from those who constantly attack them for being atheists and doubting religious doctrines. And that’s exactly what makes them good scientists. They don’t just believe and embrace, they demand evidence.
To a non believer it seems that the believers have settled for the first and simplest explanation of how the universe was created..Not having any scientific knowedge at the time they still needed a reasonable explanation for their own existence and when reason couldn’t provide them with one they just up an invented a being that could do anything and called it :God”… Non believers just want to know the truth and are not willing to accept this rather childish explanation of a magical wizard that lives up in the sky and knows everything and controls everybody and punishes the wicked, etc, etc…The athiests are the true seekers of REAL knowledge and refuse to believe the big fairy tale..
Hmmm.. A rather withering appraisal of the topic. Clearly you are an angry person here. And possibly with good reason.
We who believe in God and all that implies, I am talking the rational ones here, have not tried to establish with science that God exists. Simply because it is impossible! How do you calculate the infinite?
Oh we can assign letters like Aleph as the first number of the infinte number scale and such but really it is pure conjecture. Though it is sometimes fun to do it.
The simple fact is that creation or reality or what we see or whatever you want to call it, an accident or whatever, cannot be explained! It is too complex in the extreme. There are too many factors for science or mathmatics to give a viable answer to.
So the result? The only question, the only possible thought, the only way to see the universe(s) is to ask, WHY!
Why create them? Why did they come into existance? What for? What possible reason could nothingness want to become somethingness?
Imagine a total void so vast as to be beyond comprehension. But try to imagine a void at all since it in turn would have to be “something” to be a void. An observer would have to label it so. Then imagine that void suddenly “wants” to become something. Then that “something” decides on the shape and characteristics of that “something”. Then that void “creates” that “something”. To even “be” when there is no being. Then become when there is no becoming. Take shape when there is no shape is beyond any questions of creation or evolution. It is beyond our capabilities.
The only answer we are given that makes any sense at all in even the smallest degree is Love! But try to explain that with science or math.
It is very real but how do you measure it, catagorize it, explain it?
You cannot. Surely creation/evolution are in the same catagory as well?
What do you think?
And, Yes Love has everything to do with it! Love it the reason for anything and everything. There is nothing in this universe that makes any sense except for Love.
What is the purpose for anything except to glory in it? To create then to admire then to Love. This is why we miss the point. It is too simple. That is why we will never understand the infinite because we cannot get simpe enough, profound enough. The answer is that the profoundness or creation, if you will, is a simple word stated in a simple way that is alone and complete uncomplex yet more complex than we all together could not imagine. Can you or any of us grasp a simplicity that creates simplicity in its most completely simple terms?
Sounds silly doesn’t it. But big bang theorists are saying the samething in a way by pointing to the moment of creation and saying it is a simple act really. There is a hyper mass there (why it is there or how it got there or who decided to put it there?) then this mass decides to explode and creation begins. How can nothing decide to become something? How can a decision be made at all about anything?
Since there is nothing to decide and nothing to be gained.
There is no point to anything if you believe there is no God. Because if this is true then there is nothing. You see nothing, you perceive nothing since there is nothing to perceive. What you see around you does not exist, neither do you. It is all a dream, a feverish nightmare.
But the next question must be…..How can there be a dream or a nightmare unless someone has created it?
How can there be an unreality if there is not a reality or a creator to make them?
How can you have perspective on nothing? How do you judge about nothing from nothing?
Clearly there is some force that makes things. But what do You want to call it?
Adn the next and last question must be, does It care what you call it or think it is or describe its nature.
I think NOT!
Thoughts like this make me feel rather puny! but that is for the best as we cannot handle glory or adoration. We simple then decide we are worthy of it and in turn we destroy ourselves.
We are simple creatures that are in our infancy and have stayed there for far too long. As long as we decide we have to have what we cannot have then we will spin on the same wheels faster and faster. Then the wheels will get smaller and smaller until there is nothing left to spin on. Perhaps then we will die or learn. That is the moment that will be the most interesting in the human equation don’t ya think?
Bonkers, obviously you are a deep thinking person and I admire you for that… A lot of what you say is true..I just think there are a lot of people that know absolutely nothing about any of the ideas you have put forth, but continue to believe in the sky wizard out of unjustifiable fear and ignorance…Many thousands of years ago I can see people being stumped by what was causing all kinds of natural phenomanon like hurricanes and lightning and Earthquakes and floods and all the other nasty stuff that we now have reasonable explanations for, and imagining there was an angry god somewhere punishing them for all kinds of imaginary sins…But this is the 21st century, not 100,000BC and most people, tho not all, have come to learn that the Earth is not really flat…I just can’t imagine someones mind being that tight and narrow that they just summarily reject all the scientific knowledge that has been discovered over the years to come up with the most likely theory about the beginning of the universe..I understand that in some religions the followers still think that the Earth is only less than 6,000 years old and that ancient man lived with dinosaurs… The whole concept of plate techtonics is just ignored as is carbon dating of fossilized bones and artifacts…To me these people are fools..I hate to be so harsh, but theres no other name for someone that refuses to listen to reason…I pity them, because they are living a lie…My beliefs may not exactly fit into the catagory of atheist as I do acknowledge the existance of some power that caused everything to be created..But I don’t put a name or a face on that power..It just might be totally non sentient, unaware of our very existance…Somehow I have a strange feeling that someday scientists will tell us they have found God, and then they will show us a very complicated equation that absolutely nobody other than them could possibly comprehend! The God that everybody is so afraid of could be just a mathamatical equation dealing with the physics we know now and the physics we will learn in the future…Certainly, it is a guessing game right now, but I think I choose to go along with the people who are actually doing the research looking for the facts than with people that have volunteraly shut down their thinking processes and allowed their brains to stagnate and wither….
I am not attacking you here bonkers, but as for your question “why does the universe exist” well there doesn’t have to be a reason does there ? Giving the answer as “love” seems a highly anthropomorphic attempt at a solution.
Your statement
“There is no point to anything if you believe there is no God”
My personal belief is that there is not, give me proof and i will change my mind but this does not prevent me looking in awe and wonder at the universe that surrounds us .
Were we just to accept that we cant understand things and make no attempt to find anything out, we would still be scratching our heads as to why the sun rises every morning.
For all we know the “many universes” hypothesis or a variant of it may be correct and one universe may give rise to another ad infinitum… however i have no proof and to state that this is what happens would mean i had fallen into the same trap as someone who postulates a creator.
I find one of the greatest wonders of the universe is that all the atoms that make us up ,came from a long ago exploded star and after millennia self assembled to create the self aware beings that are you and i .
If we are extremely lucky we each have 70 or 80 orbits of our rocky little planet around the massive fusion reactor we call the sun before we turn back to dust .
By all means marvel and be awestruck but dont waste those revolutions , they are all we have.
Mytor, very well put..I, like you don’t need a sky wizard to marvel at the universe, it stands on its own merits..Maybe we will never have absolutely concrete answers to our creation and all the mysteries of the universe , but as I stated before I think i’ll follow along with the people that are TRULLY looking for God and that is the scientific community, It’s certainly not the ‘believers’ for they have already settled on an answer and closed their minds to further thought about the subject..Which would be ok, as long as they kept it to themselves, but most of them insist on spreading the ‘good word’ and all that nonsense which irritates most thinking people that just think these people are fools and wish they would just sit down and shut up…They are entitled to believe their nonsense, but PLEASE; keep it to yourself!!! I certainly don’t go around trying to convince others that there is no god, even tho all the real evidence sure points in that direction, so I can’t help but shoot down anybody that comes along trying to ‘save me’ from the evils of my ways or some crap like that…My own experience with real people over the past 65 years is that a disproportionately large percentage of people that would be in the catagory of ‘bible thumpers’ don’t really know all that much about their chosen brand of religion other that that it gives them the right to persecute anyone that doesn’t believe the same dogma that they do, and number two that because they” believe” they can pretty much do anything they want to to anybody as long as they profess a belief and show up at church once in awhile to pretend they are sorry for being sinners and get “forgiven” by the sky wizard so they can go out and do it all over again…”I’ve actually heard several of these pinheads say,”I’m not perfect, but because I believe i’m ‘forgiven’…Boy, that sure sounds to me like they look at religion as a license to do whatever the hell THEY want to do!!! Lets face it, all the juiceyest gossip involves religious people, not athiests.:o)
To Bonkers. If the Earth and this galaxy and our reality were floating off into nothing and that there is no God and only nothing- There would still be a point. Even Nihilists want to live, god bless ‘em (lol). Even nothingists and athiests love something and enjoy our human capacity to imagine and “dance”. The meaning of life is almost simple, dont worry about Why Why Why. How can you enjoy breathing when youre worried about abtract notions like judgement and an afterlife. Facts are facts- Nothing’s fair but when we step on the toes of our fellows they react. Sin is among us and Hell aint gonna scare all of them out of it. The true path for humanity’s salvation lies in the understanding that as a team we’re united and strong, able to really get some knowledge under our belt. We would be one where a person wouldn’t wish to hurt the group because he’d hurt himself. Sin is created in individuals who have no goal in life but their own selfish pleasure. That’s humanity’s number one problem in my opinion, that we have no common goal or imperative. We care not for any united purpose. We are all currently individual artists who paint a big chaotic tragedy which we love to hate. A picture where the histories of sociology and philosophy are littered with artistic movements, artistic writings and imaginative theories unlike our real scientists who reason against even what they want to believe. Its easy to want something and then make yourself believe. Scientists discovered evolution and it wasn’t some fairy tale they wanted to believe- its was cold hard data in their face. These scientists are going somewhere but everyone else isn’t. I really think humanity will fail for as long as evolution takes to rid us of religion which poisons the scientific education of generation after generation. Then one day when we teach children how to be fair to one another because we are human not because God will punish them we can have more pride in our species and not vanity in thinking we’re more than mortals.
Every time a movement with a single purpose for Man starts to get big in world politics it will get shot down as socialism and communism. Screw dictators, but cant we work together a little better for one purpose? There is a place for art in all space-time but cant we separate the imaginary from the real (hello separation of church and state) Ants do a better job than us. What do I know about these topics though, but I still have a somewhat more sound argument. And I say these things as a Freedom loving selfish individual who is quite gifted in art mediums like paint and pencil. Im a stargazer and quite liberal but somehow ended up in the infantry Marines . l may be a hypocrite at times but I’m not vain enough to be certain that Im immortal.(Christians).
Let’s do some deconstruction.
God or no god…who cares?
The assumption here is that atheists are fundamentally truth seekers, and that they only believe in evidence.
If you claim to be a scientist, you have to be willing to objectively accept any hypothesis. Whether one decides to prove or disprove the hypothesis does not alter the objective value. For example, the atheistic scientist expects the theist to accept the big bang theory, which is speculative. Therefore, if the theist does not accept it, he/she/it is a fool.
For me, an atheistic or theist scientist is an oxymoron.
You can always tell the genuine scientist because there is no need for ridicule.
Any person claiming to be a scientist, exemplary credentials or not, who is reduced to using ridicule, when their intellectual capacity is exhausted, has, in my opinion, abandoned their position. Simply can not be trusted.
Calling people, or a group of people, fools, or idiots because of a world view, is strongly symptomatic of irrationality. Irrationality is a lack of awareness or understanding of why people believe what they believe, and you would think that a true intellectual would be quite aware of this.
Examine your world view. Your home life, early years, education, friends, influencers. In fact, most people do not even consider why they believe what they believe, and yet are adamant about what they believe.
Evidence for escalating assumptions do not even consider the awareness of the gross limitations of the human receptors for gathering evidence.
Human ears hear a minuscule portion of sound frequencies.
Human eyes see a minuscule portion of light frequencies.
These are but two of the indications that we are grossly deficient in the mechanics that we so strongly base our opinions.
Humans must build prosthetic devices to translate the unseeable, and unhearable into graphical interpretations of their true form. What does 1 Gigahertz sound like? Really sound like. What would it be like to hear your 2.6Ghz CPU buzzing continuously? Hmmm, maybe some limitations are okay after all.
Can we then assume that the intellect has similar restrictions? And if so, who is the one who determines the gradient?
God is a theory, which has been, by some miscarriage of justice, to be equated with religion, of which atheism also stands in judgement.
A theist can objectively view atheism and theism. An atheist cannot. When the unprovable dead-ends, ridicule will certainly follow. It is the only way to achieve human justification.
If the statement above causes you to be irritated, ask yourself why. If you don’t know why, or don’t care about figuring it out, then, in the immortal words of the Borg, ‘…discussion is irrelevant…’ , and yes, ‘…you have been assimilated.’
Don’t throw out God with the bath water.
You want to live in a deconsfructed world for real? Where all the signifiers slip and significations chase their own tails around frantically like tabby cats caught head first in a plastic bag? It’s here.
Learn to pray.