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“Proofs”

Posted by xJane on December 5th, 2007 at 1:18 pm · 3 Comments

As I was struggling with what I believed (and how that differed from what my family believed), I came up with a view of the universe that relies upon infinity. This was a concept I was very comfortable with: History starts when we start writing things down and billions and trillions of years are hard to hold in your head; infinity was not much more of a leap for me. Thus the argument “at some point, something had to have come from nothing” does not make sense to me: I’m okay with a universe that simply exists, with no creation necessary.

Now, whether or not this is a mature world view, a correct world view, or another way of delusion is not what I’d like to discuss. When it came time in my Ethics course (the Sources of Christian Ethics, incidentally) to read & discuss Thomas Aquinas’ Five Proofs, they made no sense to me. When I finally “came out” as a non-Catholic to my Math professor brother-in-law, he described to me how reading Aquinas converted him from a skeptic to a Christian & then a Catholic. Which convinced me that we were operating in completely different universes.

Most of the Five Proofs come down to “well, either God or infinity; since infinity is impossible, God!”. But in the scientific and the mathematical worlds, infinity is possible; it’s just not definable. Every year, we hear about people finding the smaller and smaller particles that make up what we think of as the smallest possible unit (what could be smaller than an atom? than an electron?)

Again, I’m not trying to justify my belief in infinity, just sort of explain where I’m coming from. And why I was so glad to see this: 34 Arguments for God & Why They are Unconvincing.

Tags: Atheism · Doubt · Skeptic

3 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Kevin // Dec 6, 2007 at 12:55 pm

    There are many logics that posit infinity as a given (among others) and then build their system. This then helps them get off the ground to make “proofs” and statements about the world.
    Here is a way out of the Infinity vs. God (a beginning) question. Both options confer something about time – it is either endless or it had a beginning. Time is a conceptual tool that humans use to perceive the world. Without humans there is no time. The Berkeley/empiricist argument is that you cannot say anything about the world and not say something about your perceptions (i.e.; every “factual” statement about the world is a statement about how we perceive the world). Take away the thing perceiving (that which postulates time) and it (the world, the universe, etc) no longer exists in relation to the perception (as existing in time). In this view the universe isn’t infinite nor does it have a beginning, it just is.

  • 2 Jonathan // Dec 12, 2007 at 6:44 am

    Thanks for the link! This is exactly what I am interested in reading – an atheist’s perspective on the different proofs that Christians use for why God exists…

    It’s not bad! I wish he could have fleshed out some points a little more rather than just saying flippent Christian-bashing stuff (I’d rather hear the meat of the argument than the opinion)

    But to your point about infinity, I think you are on the right track, but have not gone far enough. An even more fundamental question needs to be asked: infinitiy is indeed a reality of this dimension, but where in fact did reality, of which the concept of infinity is a part of, come from? How did reality come to exist so that infinity could describe some other aspect of reality (such as time or matter?)

    These questions haunt me, thought I’d pass them on to you to haunt you to! :)

  • 3 xJane // Dec 12, 2007 at 1:50 pm

    Kevin: I like that. Infinity relies upon a definition of time that I’ve never been quite comfortable, since it is so relative. “It Just Is” is not a bad replacement :)

    Jonathan: I’ve actually never been particiularly haunted by the question of “at some point, something had to have come from nothing”…that’s actually where my belief in infinity came from: my response to that is “really? does it have to?” That seems to rely on more assumptions than I’m willing to make. But a book you might be interested in is Sophie’s World, about a young girl’s discovery of philosophy. Awesome book.

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