Does God exist-Yes says a Mathematician

Bhaai

Disciple
first the courtesy part:
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/02/17/4031d9166ab57

any math lovers out here who are atheists?
well i really dont understand some parts of the proof.so probably some geeks can chip in with their thoughts
but to me it really appeared convincing.

here is the article:

Aristotle and Descartes would be pleased to hear Dr. William Hatcher proclaim that even God Himself cannot defy logic.

Hatcher, who is a self-proclaimed Platonist philosopher with a Ph.D. in mathematics, delivered a logical proof for the existence of God before an over-filled auditorium in Warren Hall last night.

The event marked the first in what the Baha'i student organization hopes will be a series of discussions about religion, science, and philosophy, and how the three topics interrelate.

"We just felt like there wasn't enough discussion on campus" about these matters, said Natasha Bruss, BC '05, President of the Baha'i club at Columbia. Baha'i is based on the teachings of the prophet Baha'u'llah, who preached that all religions are one, religion is progressive, and that faith is not meant to be dogmatic.

Hatcher, a Baha'i adherent himself, is similarly uninterested in dogma. His discussion explored the existence of God and carefully shied away from any of its implications. Rather, he stated, "we have to transform the religious discourse from a discourse about belief to a discourse about truth."

To that end, Hatcher began his discussion with an introduction to Aristotlean, or attributional, logic and its shortcomings.

Aristotle purported to have proven the existence of God, but he did so based on a kind of logic that deals with properties of objects, an approach, he argued, that's less than satisfying considering that God's attributes cannot be perceived. Aristotle insisted that there must be a first cause, namely God, in order to avoid the logical inconsistencies of an infinite regress of causes for the universe.

Avicenna, an ancient Muslim philosopher, employed a different form of logic in his proof. He examined the relations between objects rather than their attributes, and in doing so accomplished what Hatcher called "really amazing stuff." He claimed to have proved the existence of God without recourse to Aristotle's infinite regression principle.

Hatcher said that though many subsequent philosophers like Thomas Aquinas and Moses Maimonedes built on Avicenna's proof, they continued to fall back on the infinite regression principle. Hatcher argued that this principle is not sufficient to prove the necessity of God's existence. Modern mathematics demonstrates the logical possibility of infinite regression; negative integers, for instance, do not have a minimal element or something that can be labeled a "first cause."

Thus, Hatcher has attempted to wed modern mathematics and ancient philosophy in a proof of God's existence, drawing on Avicenna's concept of relational logic. "In relational logic, we want to know how the object relates to other objects. It turns out that the relational approach often yields more useful information [than Aristotlean attributional logic]."

The proof itself rests on four principles, the first of which is the assertion that something exists. Even if the world is an illusion, he pointed out, an illusory self, contemplating an illusory universe, is still something that exists.

Further, he said, everything that exists does so because of some cause, and the "principle of sufficient reason" states that every phenomenon is either caused by something external or caused by itself, but never both. "Everything that exists has to have a reason for existing," he said.

Working from these principles, Hatcher first defined what he called "the minimum criteria for Godhood," and then set about trying to prove the existence of a phenomenon to fit those criteria. God, he said, must exist and be unique, and must be self-caused as well as being the cause of everything else. "Every existing phenomenon is the end effect of a causal chain of possibly infinite length, starting with God," he said.

He then delved into Avicenna's discussion of the part-whole relationship. "All known physical phenomena are composites, except possibly the elementary particles of quantum mechanics," he stated. Thus, if A is a component of B, then B is composite, and furthermore a composite cannot be a cause of one of its components, because it could not exist without all its components in place.

From these definitions, he said, one can infer that the universe is a composite of all phenomena. He inferred that the universe itself, then, cannot bring any of its own components into being, as it could not have existed before the existence of the components.

Then, the universe could similarly not be self-caused, since it is caused by the aggregation of its components, and so there must be some object, G, that causes the universe but is not the universe itself. G must then be universal because it is a cause, directly or indirectly, of every component in the universe.

He concluded that G is the unique uncaused phenomenon, because, as the cause of everything, it can't be caused by something else.

Hatcher said that the strength of the proof is that each assumption it rests on is empirically grounded and is "far more reasonable than its negation."

David Kline, CC '07, said he was impressed, even though he felt that the logical proof of God, far from justifying faith, only requires a different kind of faith. But, with that faith in reason so characteristic of Columbia students, he said he appreciated that the talk was "a purely logical representation of the existence of God and not the meaning of God."
 
hmmm.. how can god exist.? so even if god exists he/she couldn't have created us how can u generate finite from infinite?
 
if u ask my openion on this whole god thing,here u go

I think god just created the universe and left it for it to find its own way w/o his involvement.

I do not want to rubbish the presence of god because of 1 and only 1 question:Where do u put the gigantic universe?what lies beyond the universe?As rationale puts it universe can't be infinite.

another thing i suppose is the universe might be a giant simulation of god (if u read hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy,ull know what im talking).
 
Well, i am uncomfortabe with the word 'GOD'...instead, i believe, there is some supernatural power, some energy which is beyond the realms of any theories or speculations, it may be an invisible force, not defined by any mathematical or a scientific assumptions created by human beings. And that is what we happen to call 'GOD'..something that we do not understand...

Although all that religion stuff is crap...its an ancient institution which we somehow have inbuilt in our genes...otherwise,i think, GOD is a form of energy not related to any civilisation...
 
^^ Lol, i was thinking the same thing.

I dont believe in god at all.

There is NO force that created the Universe or our Galaxy.

Everything is already explained by Science. :).
 
I agree with Cayottee...

I dont believe in God as Krishna, Rama, Allah, Jesus, etc....

I believe in a supernatural force which I call GOD for lack of a better term .

And Goldy, there are still many things not explained by science. If science explains all of that in my lifetime, then I MAY become an atheist. but I doubt that happening anytime soon.

I mean, what is there beyond the universe? How can something soooo big be formed from something so small(albeit dense).

And even in human natuyre, there are many things we still cant explain. The phenomenon of people remembering their previous lives, and spirits coming back from the dead to try and tell the world the truth abt how they died, etc...

If you think I am a foolish believer in that sort of thing, you are wrong. It is just that I read abt some stories in a Reader's Digest book I have and they have very clearly given the facts and there is no way any of that is a fake.

Ofcourse, some ghost stories go too far. But what I read was published by RD. That gives it some authenticity. Try getting hold of the book "Strange Stories Amazing Facts Part 1 and Part 2. Read the sections titled "Footsteps into the unknown"
 
Science has explained nothing (yet). What was the universe before the big bang? How did the elements and gases come into existance which caused the big bang the first place? Space is finite, it is infinite to humans because of our limited imagination, it is logically impossible for area to be of inifinite length, so what is beyond that black sheet we call space?

If there is god, then is he too legendary to introduce himself to the people of earth? :p He could show up anytime and bust all the theories up once and for all.
I always have a mixed opinion on the existance of supernatural and gods....

hopefully we can understand as we get more advanced.
 
Breaking news -

Silverthorne, CO - After a marathon closed door session with God, atheist Herman Morison remains unconvinced of God's existence. God still believes he exists. Both parties agreed to meet until their issues are resolved.

"I'm prepared to meet with Herman until he's convinced," said God, "Or until he dies on December 3rd, 2024."

Both participants noted that progress was made, but more work still needs to be done.

"It was a pretty good meeting, but I still have a few unanswered questions," said Herman, "I asked him 'What did the carnivores eat on Noah's ark?' and he said 'that was a long time ago' and mumbled something about the flood thing being blown all out of proportion. God will have to do better than that if he plans on convincing me."

God was more upbeat. "I really think we made some progress," said God, "I could sense him leaning towards believing after I turned him into Charo then into a coffee maker." God also stated that even though Mr. Morison posed some pretty tough questions, he remains steadfast in the belief of his own existence.

"He did some pretty cool tricks," said Herman, "like making the universe disappear and reversing the flow of time, but for all I know he could've had me hypnotized or something. Imagine how dumb I'd feel if I said 'I believe in God' only to find out later that I was just in a trance."

When asked why he didn't just strike Herman down, God just smiled and said, "Violence is not a solution. Anyway, he's gonna burn in hell for all eternity, so why do I care?"
 
Even i believe that the limited scientific knowledge of human beings cannot define everything in the universe...it may take more than an average man's lifetime to study all the anomalies on this earth...forget the universe,those big shots at astro research centers around the world cannot still confirm if we have a tenth planet in our solar system..if there is life on other planets.. Our definition of scientific knowledge only covers a few nearby planets and the solar system..and the assumptions that define them..we tend to forget that beyond this, there is an unknown ocean of space lurking in the dark..what truths does it hide under its veil is beyond the reach of any hubble telescopes or Nasas of the world..

afterall man may be too small a creature to understand the bigger truths of the universe...just a drop in the ocean.. With limited knowledge, human beings are not in a position to question anything...including the eternal question about the presence of the supernatural force we call 'GOD'.. ;)
 
I found this on the web:

Only five per cent of the Universe is a usual visible matter, all the rest is mysterious dark substances

The international Vigro consortium of German, British, Canadian and US scientists handled the data collected from world observatories and created the most thorough computer model of the Universe using the largest European supercomputer of the Max Planck Institute. The supercomputer was turned off from other tasks that could distract it. 20 million galaxies were reproduced. Tracks of 10 billion particles of mysterious dark matter were traced. All in all 500 trillion mathematical operations were performed. The main result is that only five per cent of the Universe is a usual visible matter, all the rest is mysterious dark substances.

The most famous question by Einstein comes down to if the God had any choice when he was creating the Universe or all the universal rules and constants determined the events. Many ingenious minds have been either trying to solve the mystery of the Creator's plan or leaving no place for God in the Universe at all. Astronomy is the science that split scientists and theologians most of all.

The funniest thing about it is that today astronomy brings science and religion closer together. One of the most popular scientific theories about the origin of the Universe says that the Universe originated from the infinitely burning point of the infinitely small size and infinitely large density. This is the Big Bang theory that presupposes that there were no time and no matter until this moment.

Both astronomers-believers and complete atheists accept the Big Bang. The theory was formulated by Belgian priest and astronomer Georges Lemaоtre. The Big Bang is a detailed reproduction of the world's creation as it is described in the Bible. Not so long ago a Jesuit priest and the main Vatican astronomer George Coyne was defending the evolution of the Universe theory. He was urging school authorities to stop teaching such theories where God is described as a projector and constructor of the Universe.

The supercomputer can be given a new task – to check the scandalous theory of British astronomer sir Martin Rees, according to which the chance of modern civilization to live to see the next century is only 50 per cent. The reason for this is those mysterious dark substances that make up 95 per cent of the Universe and cause the never-ending recession of galaxies. Another road to stability is to revise the Einstein's theory and to add extra dimensions into space, those being inhabited by God knows whom.

The head of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute and the corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Anatoly Cherepaschuk says: “Only three-five per cent of the Universe consists of common matter of baryons (protons, neutrons, electrons and light quanta). 70 per cent of the Universe is a matter with positive energy density and negative pressure. This matter is called the dark energy. Other 25 per cent of the Universe is particles of unknown nature. They have not been discovered yet but it is clear that they are heavier than protons and do not reach the speed of light. There are lots of baryons on Earth. We can get energy out of them. Scattered energy of the Universe's vacuum that is incommensurably larger remains beyond our reach. Where is the place for God here? Physicist may view the scalar field as God. It has not been discovered yet but its existence results from the theory”.

The chief researcher of the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics and the corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences commented on those mysterious substances: “25 per cent of the Universe is the dark matter, through which electromagnetic waves move freely without interaction. The least comprehensible is the dark energy, which is 70 per cent of the Universe’s mass. The dark energy is mysterious: it does not have particles and is distributed evenly in space. It is not clear whether its density changes. The density of the common matter became eight times smaller because the Universe extended twice. Why doesn't the density of the dark energy drop? Or is it that we are just not able to measure it yet? Complete darkness”.

One of the most promising models for explaining the dark matter is the so-called supersymmetric particles, that can originate from the collision of fermions (that include protons, neutrons, electrons) and bosons that follow Bose-Einstein statistics. “Supersymmetric particles are searched for with the help of the newest accelerators. The Great hadronic collider that is being created in Switzerland with Russian financial and scientific participation has a fair chance of success”, says Mikhail Danilov, the deputy head of the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics and the corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Another way of looking for these particles is cosmic rays. Russian scientists have developed a new type of detector for a joint Russian-English experiment. The main problem is to distinguish background radiation from the dark matter energy. I hope that the mystery of the dark matter will be solved in eight or ten years. A long time? Well, the neutrino particle was discovered only 30 years after Pauli had predicted it”.

Here is the source
http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/377/16790_Universe.html
 
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