"Newton belongs to 18th century and we are in the 21st when both physics/science and theology/religion have gained more sophisticated insights. I was surprised at your doubt about the EXISTENCE of numbers not about values which indeed can be constant by their very nature, or empirically constant (or assumed as such within a physical theory), or variable. The yin-yang polarity is seldom applied to Platonic transcendentals, i.e. to good-bad, true-untrue, beautiful-ugly." - George

From the 21st we also better insights into the first century than we did in Newton's time. In several threads my position has been in regards to Christian religion one need's to look at the period, not three hundred years later, when post Jesus house-groups became an institutionalised religion [Nicaea]. Someone like Richard Leakey can tell you more about Adam & Eve than an eighteen century theologian. Yet, we have Creationist Parks in the US.

I do believe an equation is a representation of a latent variable, which is, that is, the latent variable is, more fundamental than than numbers used to describe it. The numbers exist but these are merely symbols used for manipulation. We can classify say rationals and irrationals using symbols, but there are deeper entities.

Plato would have played with Mind-Body, i.e., immaterial-material.

stickman,
I certainly appreciate that you can find time to communicate with an “old man” (I am going to be 70 next Sunday) who certainly has more time for this than a student. Remember, you asked first “as an atheist, what am I missing out” so forgive me if I continue trying to explain the wider visions that philosophy can offer, without, I hope, sounding too condescending. As I say, my hope is not to make you change your perspective but rather to widen it.

“I find the distinction between scientific and theological knowledge utterly arbitrary and false.”
You are referring to my concise reaction to Oliver’s reaction to what I addressed as a response to your question. I find this a very strong statement about an abstract concept (knowledge) that philosophers argue about: Funny you mention Oliver, because it was he who reminded me (in another thread) of Michael Polanyi who dedicated a book (Personal Knowledge) exactly to this concept.

Well, my mathematical knowledge is certainly different from what a scientist would call knowledge in his/her field. I did research just by “exercising my brain cells”, and writing down what I found, whereas e.g. a medical researcher has to do the same PLUS confront his thought constructions with physical reality (laboratory, patients, etc.). Humanity learned mathematics (and I or you as a child) through sensual contacts with physical reality, but (pure) mathematics as such has its own justification and “existence”, symbolic if you like, independent of physical reality. It is being said that yesterday’s pure maths is tomorrow’s applied math. So mathematical knowledge can be seen as something different from a knowledge of facts or laws from the material world, though non-mathematicians have often problems understanding this distinction.

Maybe something similar can be said about theology, and what is seen as knowledge in its context, but here I am not an expert. (ctd)

(ctd) Can it be that it simply offers models of a reality beyond the physical, (actually a whole lot of them if you do not restrict yourself to Christian theology) like mathematical physics – and its more naive predecessors, often intertwined with religion - offers models of the physical reality?

Well, nobody doubts the existence of physical reality, though you have to know quite a lot of mathematics to understand the discussion about its essence (string theory, loop quantum gravity, etc). The existence of a spiritual world is more in doubt, here the distinction between objective and subjective is more blurred than in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, and certainly no mathematics is helpful.

Nevertheless, you are probably right that I expressed myself too concisely, and should have said that the difference is in the way science and theology investigate their subject which is best illustrated on scientists with a degree in theology (like the physicists Ian Barbour and John Polkinghorne, or the biochemist Arthur Peacocke). Roughly speaking, there are many Christian scientists – I think the majority of them - who claim that you should do research in science “as if God did not exist” (called methodological atheism that I also subscribe to). And there are secular (agnostic or atheist) sociologists – though certainly not all - who claim the best way to organise a society is “as if God existed”. Theologians, of course, have to do their research “as if God existed”.

I referred to atheism only in context of Oliver’s ideas about maths and constants. Classically, an atheist is the one who is convinced that there is no God (usually the Christian model of Him), an agnostic is one who is not convinced one way or the other. Usually belief in God and religion is vigorously attacked by the former, not by the latter. … Unfortunately I am not allowed to write more, so you will have to wait 24 hours for the conclusion.

George,

1. I suspect we may have the same belief in the existence of numbers / latent valiables, but use nomenclature. I see H20, restated, H-2-0, as a model, not water. Same 1, 2, 3 0r I, II, III. Pure mathematics might precede applied mathemenatics, but the would be an infinite domain of mathemeatics unknown to pure mathematics, for which, symbols and models are yet to be created.

2. Two powerful concepts I take from Polanyi are "indwelling" and the coeffecient nature of explicit and tacit knowledge. The former relates to performance and the latter personal knowledge. Collectively, these concepts would suggest how an audience understands and expereinces Macbeth or an An Wednesday mass.

3. The hypostases of the Trinity could be said to have become creed from 325 CE. Actually, the debates went on for few generations after Nicaea. When things settled-down, creed became the script for the performance into which parishioners and congregations indwell, for affirmation. In this way, religious confirmation is different to scientific testing of the forensic nature, of the kind I feel Sells [other thtreads] should use.

4. Mathematics can be used to better understand the Cosmos, as you say. Philosophically the debate over the existence of god seems perpetual. Yet, history, anthropology and the behaviural sciences "do" give insights into how a multitude of religions operate. Commonalities can be observed, as with the elementary particles on the Periodic Table. The benefit of such research lies being able to "map" one's god, given the overall architecture of gods/godheads known. It permits a bird's eye view into power, politics and socialisation, not merely [limited] faith.

Cheers.

stickman, (ctd) I do not know what you mean by “possibility of God” unless you refer to some obscure scholastic terminology. If you claim that “there is not sufficient evidence for the existence” of a God (as presented in the Judaic religions), then I will agree with you provided by evidence you mean evidence accepted by contemporary science. If there were scientific evidence for His existence (like there is for the existence of galaxies or bacteria), He would not be God as understood by e.g. Christians, because there would not be any point for Him to reward those who believe in Him. Please note, I am not describing facts that you have to accept, I am just describing the Christian (or Muslim) MODEL of God. In other words, the question “why can’t you find scientific evidence for the existence of God” resembles the question “why is the Pope Catholic”: he could not be Pope if he were not Catholic and God would not be God if you could find scientific evidence for His existence.

So evidence-no evidence, either
(a) there is no God as Christians etc. believe (just a figment of their imagination), or
(b) there is one (providing those who believe in Him with some rewards, at least psychological), but BY HIS VERY NATURE His existence cannot be “verified” like that of Alpha Centauri or mitochondria.

Coming back to your original question “as an atheist, what am I missing out”, the answer is “nothing” if you keep to the realm that science can understand. What do you miss out if you speak only English? Nothing, because you can express in English everything you want to express. Nevertheless, understanding of foreign languages widens your horizon, and the same is true about understanding other world view perspectives (instead of calling them “irrational nonsense” as some do).

There is only one thing I’d like you to accept: both among those who believe in God and among those who don’t there are clever people and stupid people, educated people and uneducated people, good people and bad people, tolerant people and intolerant people.

Oliver,
“Mathematics can be used to better understand the Cosmos”. It goes deeper than that, though I am not sure how many people here would follow the distinction. Nevertheless, let me try.

Mathematics can be used to better understand (the working of) many things, i.e. this computer, where mathematics helps you to extend or deepen your intuitive understanding. When you want to understand what matter as such (or the Cosmos if you like) is, or “consists of” you need mathematics to start with. (Those who do not understand this ask silly questions like “what was before the Bing Bang?”):

Scientists first thought of atoms as small balls, then small planetary systems, then further deepened their knowledge until they hit the wall with quantum mechanic’s wave-particle dualism which is mathematically clear but no intuition helps. More importantly, in string theory nobody observed some tiny strings and then looked for mathematics to explain their workings. It was the other way around, they arrived through mathematical (and physics) considerations at a certain mathematical model of matter. True, this model is still in its stage of verification (Oliver, I know that only recently many serious doubts have been raised), and even the very mathematics it uses needs further research. The word string was attached to this theory only afterwards in order to have a name for the theory, and - perhaps more importantly - to explain to the general public what they mean. The reason for the choice of the name was that the mathematics of the model somehow resembles the mathematics of the workings of a string that everybody understands what it is