tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54519023738291358412024-02-22T21:17:10.275+05:30Atheism For Humanity<ol><li> Distinguishing a group of humans as different from *us* is the most natural cause of hatred.<li>By far religion has been the most effective way of us-vs-them classification creating far more vicious hatred than any other means.<li>Hence, eliminating religion can go a long way in promoting harmony among humans.<li>One way to eliminate religion is to eliminate the concept of God and pursue scientific rationality.</ol>
<b>This is the theme of the current blog.</b>Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-27482010240895122912008-07-06T15:16:00.009+05:302009-02-14T15:59:11.124+05:30Everlasting Frontier - 1After you cut the emphasis on personal spirituality (whatever it means), Science and Religion are two different ways of looking at the world. There are opposing qualities built into each of these two world views, which can never be reconciled.Science always puts great value on observation. It has an evershifting point of view which always incorporates the latest experimental data. Just to Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-88064782109240383192008-01-09T20:43:00.000+05:302008-01-10T20:11:41.234+05:30The Omnipresence / Eternalness Riddle - B : Dimension of Space Time.Note : This is a follow up to this post. Please don't bother about the precise meaning of mathematical terms I use. Trust me, they have the nicest intuitive meaning ! Just read on.A one dimensional world cannot be observed 'simultaneously' while being 'inside' the world. Only a being of 'higher' dimensions can have such a global view. A two dimensional being can observe one dimensional world Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-181830831568866092008-01-08T20:12:00.000+05:302008-01-10T20:11:41.234+05:30The riddle of Omnipresence / Eternalness - AWe would like to dissect the purported omnipresence and eternalness of God. Taken together it means that God is present at all places and at all times. How do we make sense of such a crazy idea ? How do we begin analyzing it ?Let us ask some questions first. Can God view the future as well as past at the same time (I am not sure what it means) ? Maybe he can go to any moment of past or future at Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-50939455220322967822007-09-10T14:16:00.000+05:302007-09-11T12:12:29.352+05:30The Omnipotent God - BThis is a follow up to part A.Recall that * version of Gods is the same as unstrarred one except it refers to knowledge as opposed to power. Also recall the definitions of more knowledgeable and more powerful, which unlike the colloquial sense are umambiguous. Nevertheless it is worth reiterating here. To be able to do some task (defined here) is a measure of Power of an entity and his ability toAghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-45901160636089977002007-09-10T11:00:00.000+05:302007-09-10T11:15:18.800+05:30A point in Omnipotence vs OmniscienceIn Dawkins' The God Delusion there is an argument showing why omniscience and omnipotence are mutually incompatible. Roughly it goes like this :If God is omniscient he must be knowing what he is going to do at some point of time (say one year later) in the future. Then he is powerless against changing it. Hence He cannot be omnipotentAs we understand, defining omnipotence and omniscience is a Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-1776881074291268682007-09-05T11:15:00.000+05:302007-09-10T10:22:25.089+05:30The Hypothesis of AtheismSo far we have been trying to understand the Theism hypothesis. Upon some reflection, it turns out that it is not so easy to make this hypothesis precise, which is where most of the difficulty with God arises. Nevertheless we will try various approaches and see what we can do with it. For the sake of completeness, we mention a caricature of this hypothesis : There exists a (many ?) loving, caringAghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-84121274006021837332007-08-28T13:41:00.000+05:302007-09-12T09:59:25.867+05:30The Real WorldBefore we examine the ontological status of God further, we would like to have a look at the real world. We have to have a protocol on what we should accept as 'truth' in the real world. And this protocol better be an objective one. Any flimflam view such as spirituality or 'inner voice' wouldn't do unless it is exactly reproducible in the same circumstances by almost all observers. If possible Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-32831332974323278202007-08-20T22:19:00.000+05:302007-09-11T11:59:07.514+05:30What is God : Omniscience - CThis article is a follow-up to part B.Before going further, we show that a K-entity and a entity is one and the same.Since a K-entity is already an entity by definition, it suffices to show that an entity is also a K-entity. Any entity is supposed to be able to finish a task. i.e, after a finite number of steps the task is over and the result is obtained. So we define a formal system whose axiomsAghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-43563005232054013512007-08-16T15:23:00.000+05:302007-09-11T11:55:25.805+05:30What is God : Omniscience - BThis article is a follow-up to part A.To 'know' something is to know it to be 'true'. Being 'true' means true in some Formal system. That means there is a formal system to which the statement refers to and is derivable from its axioms by a sequence of steps. Which means, the given statement is a proved theorem in some formal system. Which formal system is immaterial (it may be implicitly assumed,Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-16370742155250992792007-08-07T14:17:00.000+05:302007-08-28T14:27:30.180+05:30What is God : Omniscience - AApart from Omnipotence, the other putative property of God is Omniscience. Let us try to see how valid this is. To be omniscient is to know everything. We would require any knowledgeble being (entity ?) to know of *true* things and only true things. It doesn't make much sense to know of false things and certainly not from God. That brings us to meaning of *truth*. But here is a problem.Strictly Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-7525372471613548712007-08-01T13:02:00.000+05:302007-09-11T12:05:49.386+05:30What is God : Omnipotence - ATo really understand the good/bad consequences of religion, we must first understand God on whose name all this is done. Almost every pious / theologian I have talked to evades this question. In fact they feel proud of the elusiveness of God. We as scientific rationalists would try to have a thorough understanding of God and decide His likely existence and influence on the material world. After Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-38435263155576591502007-07-31T12:14:00.001+05:302007-08-10T11:25:22.437+05:30Why God ?The universality of religion/God indicates at least two things -Religion is a consequence of our evolutionary history. It perhaps helped in our wild past. The reasons are not difficult to find out. It is no brainer that having a aggressive religion helps tremendously in wars. Increased cohesion and harmony also helps in ensuring food security. It also promotes xenophobia against other tribes, Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5451902373829135841.post-34265029576973485632007-07-22T09:59:00.000+05:302007-09-05T16:49:17.735+05:30Preface / Aim / Program of this BlogThroughout human history, religion is one of the universal features common to almost all the societies. Along with religion comes a baggage of complex rituals, belief and many times an elaborate theology also. A naive argument can run along the lines - since it is universal, it must be intrinsic to us. Some may extend this to conclude *truth* of it. While universality does indicate some kind of Aghorihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00121432577680938370noreply@blogger.com1