{"id":496,"date":"2007-08-21T11:15:38","date_gmt":"2007-08-21T11:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scientopia.org\/blogs\/goodmath\/2007\/08\/21\/yet-another-idiotic-proof-of-god\/"},"modified":"2007-08-21T11:15:38","modified_gmt":"2007-08-21T11:15:38","slug":"yet-another-idiotic-proof-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/2007\/08\/21\/yet-another-idiotic-proof-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Yet Another Idiotic "Proof of God""},"content":{"rendered":"

A bunch of readers, and one commenter in another thread, have all hit me with a pathetic
\nmonstrosity of a purported proof of God. Several have even been misled by the URL where the
\ndreadful thing is posted, thinking that ScienceBlogs have picked up a creationist. Rest assured, this bozo and his blog have nothing<\/em> to do with our beloved ScienceBlogs (note the “S”); it’s just some jerk who wants to try to capitalize on our reputation.<\/p>\n

If you want to find the original page, you can go to “scienceblog.com” yourself and find it. I’m not going to link to this slime – his blog name is an attempt to use SBs reputation to pump up his credibility, so I’m not going to send hits his way.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here’s his proof – the entire thing:<\/p>\n

\nIt is an absolute truth that only that which equates ( = ) is true, that each approximation is founded upon a minimum of one untruth, and that, as such, each approximation is, technically, untrue. It is, also, an absolute truth ( = ) that, regardless of it’s complexity, there is only one (1) original source of all of life, itself, and, therefore, of all of conscious life, itself, and, therefore, of consciousness, itself, and, given that the original source of all of consciousness, itself, cannot be unconscious and that consciousness, itself, cannot be inferior to itself, the original source of conscious life is, therefore, conscious …whom most people call GOD.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I find it difficult to read a mushed together single paragraph like that, so here’s the same thing reformatted into a list of numbered statements, with the pompous redundant wording removed:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Definition of truth:<\/em>\n
      \n
    1. Only that which equates ( = ) is true;<\/li>\n
    2. Every approximation is founded upon a minimum of one untruth<\/li>\n
    3. Therefore, every approximation is, technically, untrue.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    4. Origin of Life and Consciousness<\/em>\n
        \n
      1. Regardless of it’s complexity, there is only one (1) original source of all of life.<\/li>\n
      2. Therefore, there is only one original source of all of conscious life.<\/li>\n
      3. Therefore, there is only one original source of consciousness, itself<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      4. Therefore God<\/em>\n
          \n
        1. The original source of all of consciousness, itself, cannot be unconscious.<\/li>\n
        2. Consciousness, itself, cannot be inferior to itself.<\/li>\n
        3. The original source of conscious life is, therefore, conscious. <\/li>\n
        4. The original conscious source of conscious life is God.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/ol>\n

          This is nothing but a simple exercise in embedding your conclusion in your premises.<\/p>\n

          The first part – the part that I’ve labeled “Definition of truth” – is completely irrelevant to
          \nthe rest. It’s his attempt to undermine science. After all, in science we’re pretty much always using
          \napproximations (you can’t do anything but approximation without including the state of the entire
          \nuniverse in every experiment; since we don’t know the state of the entire universe, that’s impossible).
          \nSo if approximations are all false, then nothing that scientists have ever done or can ever do is actually
          \ntrue. Silly, but as I said, irrelevant to the rest of his so-called proof.<\/p>\n

          The next part is the first place where he just assumes his conclusion. Why is there only one source of all
          \nlife? If abiogenesis is possible, it can easily happen independently in multiple places. You can’t
          \nprove abiogenesis is impossible simply by making an assumption that it’s impossible.<\/p>\n

          From the origin of life, to the origin of consciousness, he does the same thing. Why
          \ncan’t the original source of consciousness be unconscious? This is supposedly a proof of God, and
          \nthat God created us. You can’t just assume<\/em> that consciousness can’t arise as an emergent
          \nphenomena without any conscious instigator – that what you’re supposedly trying to prove. This
          \nis the conclusion of the proof – putting it here, as a premise, completely invalidates the proof – the whole thing boils down to “If you assume that God exists, then you can prove from your assumption that God exists.” Not a very compelling proof.<\/p>\n

          And he pulls an even stupider move: “Consciousness cannot be inferior to itself”. That’s a tautology: X=X, therefore ¬X<X. It’s a meaningless statement: “inferior” isn’t defined, and of course nothing is inferior to itself. (If X is inferior to itself, then X is also superior to itself, which renders
          \ninferior and superior either meaningless or equivalent to each other.)<\/p>\n

          Next is just more of the “assume the conclusion”; this time he just masquerades it as if it were
          \nan inference from previous statements when it’s really just another bald assertion of the conclusion.<\/p>\n

          And then, finally: surprise! He’s proved that God exists, after only assuming it 3 or 4 times. Impressive, huh?<\/p>\n

          And this<\/em> is the guy who thinks he can steal ScienceBlogs thunder? Give me a break…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          A bunch of readers, and one commenter in another thread, have all hit me with a pathetic monstrosity of a purported proof of God. Several have even been misled by the URL where the dreadful thing is posted, thinking that ScienceBlogs have picked up a creationist. Rest assured, this bozo and his blog have nothing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bad-logic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4lzZS-80","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}