I'm sure your view has similarities with that of 18th century mathematicians, but these days I'm not so sure:

Such as this article that discusses the (mis)use of the term 'god particle' for the Higgs boson

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/13/us-science-higgs-god-idUSTRE7BC28H20111213?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=309301

Personally I find it amazing that mathematics can predict the existence of things that we currently cannot detect. So often these theoretical particles/forces are later proven accurate. Note the scientists of CERN are completely willing and able to produce new theories regarding the working of the universe based on the results of their measurements and observations. If only religious folk were capable of doing the same.

Brian

Might I respectfully suggest that your faith in mathematics goes too far. The laws of physics (expressed in mathematical form) do not explain everything about the universe we live in - see 'How solid are science, reason and critical thinking'
http://cpds.apana.org.au/Teams/Articles/EvangelicalAtheism.htm#Secondly

And as the latter notes, East Asian societies with an ancient Chinese cultural heritage (rather than the West's classical Greek heritage) start by assuming that there are no universal laws.

John Craig

Brian, in your previous article
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12699&page=2
you wrote "How much more do the masses need to be witness to before finally appreciating that evidence-based knowledge is the only knowledge upon which decisions are to be based?"

I am wondering, where is the physical evidence to support your thesis that "God is now speaking to us"

David

Contemplating God in mathematical terms can be confusing, Mr Holden. So it is not surprising that thinking in this manner can become entirely circular, as do all the "God exists because" discussions.

Here's where you chase your own tail in this article:

"Most mathematicians have rejected the notion of God as a supernatural being who loves us and wishes to be loved in return"

...to be blitzed by your final statement:

"If you cannot accept formal religion or the delusionary world of New Age, but still feel that 'there is something out there,' then the more of a mathematician you become, the more you will know what that something is."

Leaving aside for the moment the absence of evidence for "most mathematicians" rejecting God, surely it is a contradictory concept, that greater understanding of mathematics makes you more religious?

Or am I missing something?

Knowledge and the mathematical extrapolation of “God”…

…# I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me # …

...Henry Nouwen…

Brian Holden

By this outline of the history of Knowledge you manage to reach the same conclusions to which T S Eliot arrived by examining the power war of twelfth century England between Church and Throne, in his play ‘Murder in the Cathedral’.

Eliot was then as close to his end as you, and, scared that a vindictive god might be around, had a bob each way on his existence.

Mister, relax, no god is there.

If a God exists, he can last only as long as Man lasts, which cannot be another 10.000 years.

Skeptic:

#If a God exists, he can last only as long as Man lasts, which cannot be another 10.000 years #.

Is this a "Bogan" view? Me thinks!

Pericles,
I do not think the two sentences you quote contradict each other. As I understand it, Brian is apparently trying to say that mathematics (or science for that matter) is irrelevant to whether or not you accept the tenets (narrative models of the supernatural) of this or that established religion, but it can make you more open to what is known as deism (or “Einstein’s God”).

Pure mathematics teaches you to think rationally, follow the rules of logic, avoid non-sequiturs etc, and thus to better know what follows, and what does not, from your initial world-view presuppositions, be they theist or atheist or what. There are certainly mathematicians who are theists, or deists, as well as those who are atheists or agnostics. I do not think the proportions are very different from those for (natural) scientists.

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality” (Einstein).

Perhaps one could similarly say:

“As far as religious symbols (and norms) refer to reality (and rules that can be enforced) they are not certain; as far as they are certain they do not refer to observable reality (and rules that can be enforced).”

Islam incorporates "sacred geometry" into its concepts and art forms as a representation of the "language of the universe".....a representation of the concept of God and creation.

http://www.patterninislamicart.com/

...and looky here - something called quasicrystals.....

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-05/atomic-mosaic-wins-chemistry-nobel/3310930

"After millennia of silence, God is now speaking to us"

For the postulation of your article to be correct and for the title to be accurate, the only conclusion is that there's been no mathematics for thousands of years.

"They arrived at conclusions by a stepwise rigorous method from first principles."

If it was good enough for 'them', why isn't it good enough for you? Or have I missed something?

diver dan:

There are as many ideas of god as there are men.

The god in the imagination of one person cannot be equal to that of another even if of the same body of religion, be it theistic or non theistic.

When a man is extinct, his god is extinct. When all men are gone, all gods are gone.

It would be “bogan” to say “when all men are gone, women still remain”.

Johm Craig.
Have you considered that if there were no universal laws, what we would have is chaos. Even the most religous believe that God restored order out of chaos.

David

Another interesting article, Brian Holden, thank you.
I agree with George -as far as I am able, not being a mathematician- one should not confuse (or consider necessary) 'formal religion' with belief in a supreme or even superior being.
Indeed, I find it difficult to understand how certain formal religions, -such as the one who's spiritual leader lives like a prince amongst spendour hardly dreamed by the potentates of history, while simultaneously worshipping a mendicant- can claim to be religious either.
It was reading the Great Atheist Richard Dawkins that led me to (or confirmed in me) the belief of the inevitability of a God.
Albeit, an evolved one.

As long as your beliefs don't cause you to fly planes into buildings, protest against other people enjoying themselves, or demand tax breaks at other peoples' expense, then go ahead and believe what you like. There are plenty of far more dangerous creeds we need to take care of first.

There is great beauty in mathematics. It can be enjoyed all your life, but when you die there is no aftermath.

Brian, I think it is a lovely piece, not least because my dad had a copy of Mathematics for the Millions and you brought back memories I had forgotten of being dipped into the book as a teenager by my dad who was enthusiastic about mathematics.

I've been reading the comments and I think most of them bring their own prejudices of what God is and can't see what you are saying. Keats said that "Beauty is truth, truth is Beauty - that is all/ ye know on earth and all there is to know". If we take that as axiomatic, and if we also take it as axiomatic that God is truth, then I think by describing the beauty for you of mathematics which arrives not just at the truth, but describes reality, you have come to something which is for you God.

I don't think you're suggesting that God is a being that you can talk to, or that God is a supernatural being. I think your concept is more pantheistic than that and exists in and through matter.

And I don't get the idea that you're worried about an afterlife. I don't think it's contemplated in your cosmology.

Hope you find time to comment.

Brian, thank you for a thought-provoking article. I'm no mathematician but you opened my mind a little to the possibility that one can get closer to God through understanding mathematical relationships.

You write that "every mathematical equation discovered was always waiting in the mind of God to be discovered." As a musician and a composer of sorts, I would say that "every new melody was always waiting in the mind of God to be discovered."

Perhaps for each person there is at least one modality that best leads them to a greater awareness of God -- for one it might be maths or music, for another dance or health-care, for yet another poetry or gardening.

Thank you again.

I'm sorry Graham, but why would any non believer or -dare I use the word without invoking climate- sceptic take a postulated mythical being as "axiomatic"?
Apart from the fact that that's really the only way one can take such a being -if (and only IF) one is so inclined- in the absence of empirical or logical proof, that is...
Apart from that tiny quibble, I'd go along with the rest of your post.

I feel that mathematics is just a way of demonstrating that the universe is constrained within a set of rules that allow it to exist.

Ultimately there is only right or "not right" and nothing in between.
It has is great beauty of itself but has no moral value beyond that.

Then again maybe Mathematics is just a global scam conceived by governments and accountants and conducted by evil scientists to get their hands on generous research grants.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Dylan Thomas

'Most mathematicians have rejected the notion of God as a supernatural being who loves us and wishes to be loved in return. '

Professor of Mathematics at Oxford Uni John Lennox is an exception.

Grim, I think you've given us an example of what I said in my second par "I've been reading the comments and I think most of them bring their own prejudices of what God is and can't see what you are saying".

I'm not talking about what you call a "postulated mythical being" as I make clear in paragraph three "I don't think you're suggesting that God is a being that you can talk to, or that God is a supernatural being." I'm hoping Brian will be able to tell me whether I am reading correctly.

I get a bit tired of all the discussion on this site about God being about the Sunday school version that Dawkins sets up as his strawman punching bag. Brian is obviously not using the word in those terms.

It seems to me that humans subliminally understand the "mathematical" patterning of the world around them. Everywhere this quality resonates. To ponder a shell spiral, a wave, the head of a sunflower or a beehive, for example, is to subconsciously absorb that connection as the essence of creation.

http://www.patternsinnature.org/Book/Spirals.html

Hi Graham,
I'm not sure if it was my initial post or George's that you didn't read, but I don't believe I criticised Brian's conjecture, or implied that Brian Holden -or anyone else- believed in a 'Sunday School' God. Indeed, I congratulated him on an interesting article.
It appears you have taken offence at my use of the term “Postulated” (to claim or assume the existence or truth of, especially as a basis for reasoning or arguing) “mythical” (regardless of how you categorise, conceptualise, define or wonder, the 3 letter word 'God' is itself -surely undeniably- rooted in our deep distant past, in the realms of myth, legend and drama. Even if you believe that out of 4,000 postulated deities, only one is genuine, the word “mythical” is still applicable 99.998% of the time, wouldn't you agree?) “being”; perhaps “entity” (or State, or Wave Form, or Field) might arguably have been more apropo. I meant the word in the sense of “in existence”, which is surely what the discussion is about, isn't it?
No, I have no problems with Brian's interesting conjecture, but rather with your use of the word “axiomatic” (a self-evident truth that requires no proof.). I realise you prefaced your use of the word with 'if', but even so the truth implicit in mathematics hardly necessitates an acceptance of God as an axiom; despite, as I admitted, that really being the only way anyone can accept the One God Hypothesis, in the absence of proof.
It is to many of us, however, hardly 'self-evident'.
As I mentioned, I agreed with the rest of your post, particularly “I don't think you're suggesting that God is a being that you can talk to, or that God is a supernatural being”.
I don't think so either.

Dear Graham Y,

Unfortunately the Sunday School version of God that Dawkins attacks is the only version that many Christians get. A friend was a Lutheran pastor and told me about his training at St. Olaf's seminary in the United States. He spoke of sophisticated discussions of the origins of belief, the relation of the scriptures to concurrent legends etc. It was far from the Sunday School version that Dawkins attacks. I asked him how much of these discussions he brought to his parishioners. He said, "I wouldn't want to disturb their simple faith." He has since left the church altogether and is CEO of a do-good organisation.

Dawkins is doing the job that my friend should have done. He is questioning that simple faith.

Graham,

I would suggest that criticism of simplistic and ignorant views of "god" is a good thing. Those who hold such simplistic and ignorant views should be the target. Hence athiests criticise the worst manifestations of "christianity". A pity "christians" from more learned ranks do not also take the time to rebuke and instruct such poor examples, as it might lead to a far less obviously tarnished reputation for "christians" generally.

Rusty

This discussion has taken an interesting turn.

>>I get a bit tired of all the discussion on this site about God being about the Sunday school version that Dawkins sets up as his strawman punching bag.<<

Apart from the gratuitous "strawman punching bag" part, this is an acute and pertinent observation.

The vast majority of my (English-speaking) generation were introduced to religion in its Sunday School format. Stories about lambs and flocks, Bibles illustrated with impossibly Aryan images of a bearded man with a circle of light round his head, simple tunes that we all could sing without worrying about the words... I'm sure I'm not alone.

At the other end of the scale we have...

>>...a Lutheran pastor [who] spoke of sophisticated discussions of the origins of belief, the relation of the scriptures to concurrent legends etc.<<

In both instances, I would suggest, the concept that God "exists" is taken for granted. Certainly, it would be pretty pointless attending St. Olaf's seminary as an atheist. And a child rarely questions "facts" that are presented by well-meaning adults.

On this forum, we do have a sprinkling of theologians defending their turf, using the vocabulary of the seminary. And we do have a handful of mature believers, who for reasons of their own have graduated from the Sunday School version, but without getting too mystical about it all.

Many of the rest of us, it would seem, handed in any faith we had at the Sunday School door, unable to accept that the images it had presented us with bore any relation to our lives whatsoever.

It is not surprising therefore that posters of either persuasion often feel unable to communicate effectively with the other. In fact, it most often seems that we are talking to ourselves, about ourselves.

So getting cross about a bit of sniping is pretty pointless, I would have thought. It goes with the territory.

In my view, by the way, Brian Holden's musings are themselves firmly rooted in his Sunday School perception of God.

I thought we had already gone over this in that other thread, Graham…

<<I get a bit tired of all the discussion on this site about God being about the Sunday school version that Dawkins sets up as his strawman punching bag.>>

So many of the more ”sophisticated” theists like to portray this image of Dawkins (why they never pick on any of the others is beyond me) simply attacking an invention of his own making - a God that allegedly no-one actually believes in.

“Oh, Dawkins isn’t attacking any REAL God”, they’ll proclaim.

Yes, he is.

Dawkins is attacking the God that the vast majority of theists still believe in; the God whom those “people in the pews” (those “people in the pews” that so many “sophisticated” Christians like to look down upon) believe in.

And besides, anyone who’s actually read The God Delusion would realise that Dawkins’ arguments on this topic are board enough to cover most versions of God. There’s a reason why he focuses on the bearded old man in the sky that most theists worship and it has to do with percentages.

<<Brian is obviously not using the word in those terms.>>

The word “God” carries with it some baggage because of its historical use. We don’t get to just apply the term “God” to anything we want and ignore the baggage when it’s convenient, but then use the baggage when it is convenient - as so many Christians do.

It would be wrong for me to claim that God is, say, “gravity” because gravity doesn’t share any identifiable characteristics with the classical definitions of god (where we get the baggage from) and neither does mathematics.

All Mr Holden’s article appears to be is yet another attempt to rescue God from the redundancy scrap heap. Nothing more.

Greetings, GrahamY…

I've lost track of who is preaching to which choir at this stage of the comments, but I'll join the chorus.

The only prejudice I believe I brought to my reading and reaction to the article was an expectation of mathematically applied logic.

That Brian didn't quite get there is evidenced in the way you couched your comments yesterday – that is, what you *think* he was or was not suggesting God is or isn't.

Maybe I have a different concept of what "rigourous method from first principles" means. Otherwise, it opens up the possible line of argument that God might have decided that one plus one equals three. I've met practising accountants who are capable of doing this – and they certainly didn't think they were god – though come to think of it, chartered accountants…

"With the simultaneous development of communications at the speed of light and transportation at the speed of sound, the world has contracted into a mere neighbourhood in which people are instantly aware of each other's affairs and have immediate access to each other. And yet, even with such miraculous advances, with the emergence of international organizations, and with valiant attempts and brilliant successes at international cooperation, nations are at woeful odds with one another, people are convulsed by economic upheavals, races feel more alienated than before and are filled with mistrust, humiliation and fear."

(26 November 1992, message from the Universal House of Justice)

I'm not sure whether that should be flagged as off topic, G R. But it is an interesting additional light to throw on the subject.

"...the world has contracted into a mere neighbourhood in which people are instantly aware of each other's affairs and have immediate access to each other..."

I think this is the point where the author of the quote goes off the rails, so to speak. He makes the assumption that technology should enable the world to communicate better, when in fact it only enables them to communicate more. And as we all know, quantity has never been a substitute for quality.

The resultant increase in noise level - think of the combined impacts of Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging etc. - actually serves to separate people into "like" groupings, and discourages communication between groupings. As a result, more and more people are talking more and more, to more and more people who see the world in exactly the same way that they do.

Which makes it unsurprising that the quote also tells us that "races feel more alienated than before and are filled with mistrust, humiliation and fear."

It is almost a "because of", rather than the "in spite of" that he seems to suggest.

I see AJ's puny little fist still waving. Well we have had them in every generation. They are just slightly more vocal these days.

'All Mr Holden’s article appears to be is yet another attempt to rescue God from the redundancy scrap heap. Nothing more.'

The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will continue to be worshipped long after the arms get tired.

What am I waving my “puny fist” at, runner?

The grotesque monster of the Christian Bible who wants to punish people for its own problems?

The same monster that set mankind up to fail, then impregnated a woman with himself so that he could eventually be sacrificed to himself in order to a save us from what he originally condemned us to in the first place?

I’ll tell you what, runner. If that monster did exist, then I certainly would be shaking my fist at it - no matter how puny.

Christian theology is as repulsive and immoral as the God it’s based around. The concept of compulsory love is immoral; the idea that the bloody sacrifice of someone else can cleanse me of my wrong-doing is immoral and bringing souls into and under such a celestial dictatorship, without asking whether or not they want to be there first or if they agree to such dreadful terms and conditions, is immoral.

<<The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will continue to be worshipped long after the arms get tired.>>

With churches losing 200 members a week in Australia alone, I wouldn’t be so confident if I were you.

Graham

Einstein used the label 'God' for the mechanism which makes all possible. He did not believe in an afterlife. The concept of a 'God' which has no interest in the fate of man can make some sense of reality in place of having, for the atheist, a reality which makes no sense at all. Anyway, my submission was just an idea.

Dear runner,

You don't seem to get the idea. Atheists do not hate God. Atheists do not shake their fists (puny or otherwise) at God. Atheists do not get angry at God.

Atheists do not think there is a God. Since there is no evidence that there is a God it is reasonable to think God is nothing but a human invention. It is unreasonable to have any emotions directed to a non-existent being. It is reasonable to direct emotions towards humans who try to push their belief in a non-existent being on other people.

It is reasonable to get angry when the believers in a non-existent being try to interfere with science teaching. It is reasonable to get angry when the believers in a non-existent being try to push their mumbojumbo on little children by having chaplains in the public schools which should be for all children. Schools should help children to learn to examine ideas and information critically. It does not help when people who believe in virgins having babies and other nonsense are allowed to cloud impressionable young minds.

Thank you Brian. You encapsulated my feelings on the subject in a single sentence.

Fair enough, Mr Holden...

<<...my submission was just an idea.>>

I take back my comment that your article was just another attempt to rescue God from the redundancy scrap heap and nothing more.

I just see this kind of stuff so often from those who wish to divorce the concept of God from the “beared old man in the sky” (in order to cling to a concept that they are so afraid of taking that final step in letting go of) that I assume the worst every time I see it.

My apologies.

If there was a God out there, Brian, who wanted the human race to progress through mathematics, he would not have written "In the beginning" in his holy book preamble.

He would have written "The sun is a star", and got the human race thinking straight right from the start.