RE: Do we need to study all the religions to know that God doesn't exist?
May 8, 2015 at 7:14 pm
No, we do not.
To encapsulate Sagan's 'Reflections On A Grain Of Salt', consider a microgram or so of NaCl. This speck - barely large enough to be seen with the naked eye - contains atoms. A LOT of atoms. A hugely mind-warpingly large number of atoms. In fact, there are more atoms in this speck of salt than there are synapses in the human brain. At first consideration, in order to 'know' the grain of salt, we would have to know, at a minimum, the position of each atom or chlorine and each atom of sodium. This is more information that the human brain, or even several human brains, is capable of holding (there's actually a lot more to know, such at direction of spin, etc, of all atoms).
But human brains have the capacity to figure out rules according to which sodium and chlorine combine. Thus, with, say, around ten bits of information, we can 'know' everything we need to know about common table salt.
Religionists are fond of telling us that, since, we haven't been everywhere in the universe and examined - in minutest detail - all of existence, we can never be sure that God doesn't exist (it never occurs to them that, with the same strictures , they can never be sure that God does exist). But again, we can come up with rules - good, reliable, rules that actually work when it comes to describing how the universe operates. Instead of viewing volcanic eruptions as some sort of Holy Jism, we have volcanology. Instead of a windstorm being a divine fart, we have meteorology. In sort there simply isn't anything for God to do.
And a God with nothing to do is no God.
Boru
To encapsulate Sagan's 'Reflections On A Grain Of Salt', consider a microgram or so of NaCl. This speck - barely large enough to be seen with the naked eye - contains atoms. A LOT of atoms. A hugely mind-warpingly large number of atoms. In fact, there are more atoms in this speck of salt than there are synapses in the human brain. At first consideration, in order to 'know' the grain of salt, we would have to know, at a minimum, the position of each atom or chlorine and each atom of sodium. This is more information that the human brain, or even several human brains, is capable of holding (there's actually a lot more to know, such at direction of spin, etc, of all atoms).
But human brains have the capacity to figure out rules according to which sodium and chlorine combine. Thus, with, say, around ten bits of information, we can 'know' everything we need to know about common table salt.
Religionists are fond of telling us that, since, we haven't been everywhere in the universe and examined - in minutest detail - all of existence, we can never be sure that God doesn't exist (it never occurs to them that, with the same strictures , they can never be sure that God does exist). But again, we can come up with rules - good, reliable, rules that actually work when it comes to describing how the universe operates. Instead of viewing volcanic eruptions as some sort of Holy Jism, we have volcanology. Instead of a windstorm being a divine fart, we have meteorology. In sort there simply isn't anything for God to do.
And a God with nothing to do is no God.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
