Three Theological Musings
Dec. 7th, 2005 04:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bnewmanIn no particular order:
It is written in the Talmud that whoever enjoys something of this world without saying a blessing is like a thief. It is also written that we should share what we have with the poor. What does this tell us? That the Author of Creation, released Creation under an Attribution-ShareAlike license. Somehow it feels right to me that Creative Commons should be imitatio Dei.
Laplace's God says: "How can it be that all is forseen, yet free will is given? I'll tell you. I know enough to determine what will happen at any point in the future — say, a year from now — but I haven't worked it out yet. I have a simulation running on a big computer right now, though, so I should be able to tell you soon enough."
How long will this simulation take to determine what's going to happen one year from now?
"Oh, about a year."
Finally, consider this object — a familiar subset of the complex plane in whose (approximate) shape I will someday bake a giant almond cookie. It's infinitely complex, and yet nothing about it is random — it is all order and pattern. And it's mathematically inevitable. The idea of the complex plane, the idea of iteration, and a trivial quadratic equation entirely determine it. It was discovered, not made.
Pure mathematics is as close as we can get to something that just is, without coming from somewhere — of course, the development of our understanding of mathematics is historical and contingent, but wouldn't most of mathematics come out the same way if we had to do it over? Mathematics itself ordains an intricate dance of order and chaos, yielding infinite complexity and — to us — beauty. There is a source of beauty and wonder in the universe that is baked into reality at so deep a level that we can't even readily conceive of how it could be different.
This is what really annoys me about "Intelligent Design" people — in suggesting that individual instances of beauty and complexity must be the work of a designer, they are positing a world-system that is intrinsically devoid of beauty and complexity. Well, my God didn't make a world-system intrinsically devoid of beauty and complexity! He built beauty and complexity into the very fabric of His world, and I think He'd be insulted to hear them suggest otherwise!
It is written in the Talmud that whoever enjoys something of this world without saying a blessing is like a thief. It is also written that we should share what we have with the poor. What does this tell us? That the Author of Creation, released Creation under an Attribution-ShareAlike license. Somehow it feels right to me that Creative Commons should be imitatio Dei.
Laplace's God says: "How can it be that all is forseen, yet free will is given? I'll tell you. I know enough to determine what will happen at any point in the future — say, a year from now — but I haven't worked it out yet. I have a simulation running on a big computer right now, though, so I should be able to tell you soon enough."
How long will this simulation take to determine what's going to happen one year from now?
"Oh, about a year."
Finally, consider this object — a familiar subset of the complex plane in whose (approximate) shape I will someday bake a giant almond cookie. It's infinitely complex, and yet nothing about it is random — it is all order and pattern. And it's mathematically inevitable. The idea of the complex plane, the idea of iteration, and a trivial quadratic equation entirely determine it. It was discovered, not made.
Pure mathematics is as close as we can get to something that just is, without coming from somewhere — of course, the development of our understanding of mathematics is historical and contingent, but wouldn't most of mathematics come out the same way if we had to do it over? Mathematics itself ordains an intricate dance of order and chaos, yielding infinite complexity and — to us — beauty. There is a source of beauty and wonder in the universe that is baked into reality at so deep a level that we can't even readily conceive of how it could be different.
This is what really annoys me about "Intelligent Design" people — in suggesting that individual instances of beauty and complexity must be the work of a designer, they are positing a world-system that is intrinsically devoid of beauty and complexity. Well, my God didn't make a world-system intrinsically devoid of beauty and complexity! He built beauty and complexity into the very fabric of His world, and I think He'd be insulted to hear them suggest otherwise!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-07 10:42 pm (UTC)ahahahahaha MANDELBROT.
*loves*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-07 11:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-08 03:49 am (UTC)Honestly, I am not even sure if God is PURPOSEFUL. God is just BEAUTIFUL.