In “Irreligion,” mathematician John Paulos explains why arguments for God just don’t add up

John Paulos, well-known for his writings on mathematics (he is a professor of mathematics at Temple University), has now published a book on the topic of God. In Irreligion he asks whether there are any logical or mathematically substantiated reasons to believe in God. He concludes that the answer is a resounding no.

Irreligion is a short book (only 150 pages) and it is written cleanly, with lots of humor stirred in.

Paulos gets off to a good start when he insists that you can’t really argue whether God exists unless you define what you mean by “God.” He recognizes, for example, that some people use the term God to refer to the laws of physics or nature itself. This book, however, is addressed to those who believe in a more traditional version of God:

Most conventional monotheistic characterizations of God (Yahweh, Allah) take Him to be an entity or Being that is, if not omnipotent, at least extraordinarily powerful; if not omniscient, at least surpassingly wise; if not the Creator of the universe, at least intimately connected with its origin; if not completely and absolutely perfect, at least possessor of all manner of positive characteristics. This formulation will, on the whole, be my definition of God and the many flawed arguments for this entity’s existence will be my primary focus.

By this definition, an atheist is “someone who believes that such an entity does not exist.” An agnostic is “someone who believes that whether God exists or not …

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Continue ReadingIn “Irreligion,” mathematician John Paulos explains why arguments for God just don’t add up

Does the universe has a “purpose”? Say what?

The Templeton Foundation is promulgating a set of short essays by twelve prominent thinkers and writers.  I’ve recently noticed these essays in several magazines.  Templeton asked the following question to its panel: “Does the Universe Have a Purpose?”   The answers ranged from “yes” to “not sure” to “unlikely” to “no.”  …

Continue ReadingDoes the universe has a “purpose”? Say what?

We need to hunt down and kill Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand.

Why fear the Invisible Hand?  Because the invisible hand is evil.  As construed by those conservatives currently in power, it is the economic equivalent of the Devil.  This conclusion is going to come as a shock to many conservatives, because they give homage to the invisible hand as though it…

Continue ReadingWe need to hunt down and kill Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand.

Gentle “Miranda Warning” cards for religious moderates

 At this site we have often debated the extent to which non-Believers are harmed by the beliefs of religious moderates.  The main idea is that moderates are serving as human shields for whacked-out literalist fundamentalists.  Society would be hammering fundamentalists with enough widespread ridicule to make them political untouchables, except that religious moderates continue clinging to “lite” versions of fundamentalist beliefs.

This concern has been well-articulated by Sam Harris:

Religious moderates are giving cover to fundamentalists because of the respect that moderates demand of faith-based talk. Religious moderation doesn’t allow us to say the really critical things we must say about the abject stupidity of religious fundamentalism.

This issue raises a serious question: Should non-Believers actively challenge the ubiquitous “mild,” religious pronouncements made by religious moderates? Until recently, I usually remained silent when my kind and decent relatives, acquaintances and neighbors, uttered things like this:

  • At least I know that my dead aunt is now in heaven; or
  • I prayed that my son would get that new job and God answered my prayer; or
  • Jesus loves us. 

Assertions like this don’t imminently threaten me.  The religious moderates who utter such things are not power-mongerers who dream of taking the reins of government to impose literalist versions of their sacred literature on people like me.  These assertions certainly don’t pack the poisonous wallop of the commonly uttered fundamentalist accusations that non-Believers like me are morally unfit to participate in society.  Rather, statements of faith uttered by religious moderates are usually …

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