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Mathematics Requires Morality
The use of mathematics demands morality. Disclaim God and His moral law and there is no obligation to affirm that two plus two equal four, and that "A" cannot be "A" and "non-A" at the same time, in the same way. "Must" I affirm mathematical or logical truth? If so, I must provide objective unchanging moral grounds for the obligation, and that requires an unchanging God. For two plus three not to be four, anywhere at any time, requires a universal truth: which presupposes an all-knowing God (who supplies the moral law). God's law commands all men to tell the truth and forbids lying. This is the reason we "ought" to affirm two plus three equal five.
Presupposing God as the solution to all questions and the standard for truth does not mean that we must construct a theological postulate just to perform mundane tasks. Yet every simple task and every piece of routine communication presupposes the triune God because we use logic and morality in all those endeavors. God is the precondition for all logic and morality. If we presuppose anything other than God as our starting point, we end up with absurd and contradictory affirmations. The tri-unity of God--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--is inescapable if we want to make sense out of our world. To reject the triune God is to end up asserting your own philosophical demise. Deny God and you commit logical suicide.
147 comments
So.... you only believe 2+2=4 because God exists?
Clearly somewhere along the line the school system has failed you.
Also, inb4 MATHEMATICS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY
Hey look, its an religious dumbass trying to sound like hes NOT a dumbass. But we all know "God" has nothing to do with morality, mathematics, and least of all logic.
The words appear to be in the English language but I don't understand a single word of it...
English, motherfucker. Do you speak it?
The use of mathematics demands morality.
Try telling that to a loan shark when he's calculating how much you owe him. By the way, as a heads up you might want to order your prosthetic knees right now.
God's law commands all men to tell the truth and forbids lying. This is the reason we "ought" to affirm two plus three equal five.
No, we need math to stay consistent for it to be a useful tool for both describing the world and for trade. If everyone made up their own amounts willy-nilly, currency would be worthless, so would bartering, etc. Indeed, civilization itself would collapse and that's NOT a hyperbole as civilization depends on trade. Also, we tend not to tolerate liars because they devalue information by spreading false information, which is kind of like counterfeiting devaluing currency. No god is required for any of this, just the desire to have useful trade and useful language.
"For two plus three not to be four, anywhere at any time, requires a universal truth"
You mean the universal truth (that doesn't require any god) that if you put two objects and three more objects in a pile and then count them there are more than four?
"God is the precondition for all logic and morality. If we presuppose anything other than God as our starting point, we end up with absurd and contradictory affirmations"
Could you give an example?
okay, assuming that for 2+2 to equal 4, you must have god (which can be done, it just requires a few shaky assumptions in the logic), why is it the christian "triune"? why not any other deity from humanity's history? or ones that haven't been thought up?
The use of mathematics demands morality. Disclaim FSM and Her moral law and there is no obligation to affirm that two plus two equal four, and that "A" cannot be "A" and "non-A" at the same time, in the same way. "Must" I affirm mathematical or logical truth? If so, I must provide objective unchanging moral grounds for the obligation, and that requires an unchanging FSM. For two plus three not to be four, anywhere at any time, requires a universal truth: which presupposes an all-knowing FSM (who supplies the moral law). FSM's law commands all men to tell the truth and forbids lying. This is the reason we "ought" to affirm two plus three equal five. ....
See how easy that is? Using your own (ill) logic I just "proved" the FSM. You cannot any longer deny her/him and must at once praise her/his noodliness.
EDIT: I just read the original page. WOW what a bunch of fail. The book seems to claim math is perfect because god is. Really? Then why does "god" say pi is 3?... FAIL
Wait, so...morality is the basis for our ascribing characters to the concept of a given amount of a thing (and then later to the idea of amount or number)?
>...two plus two equal four, and that "A" cannot be "A" and "non-A" at the same time, <
And then there's algebra, the devil's arithmetic.
@#1164356
okay, assuming that for 2+2 to equal 4, you must have god (which can be done, it just requires a few shaky assumptions in the logic), why is it the christian "triune"? why not any other deity from humanity's history? or ones that haven't been thought up?
Because that's the god Mike A. Robinson's mother told him about when he was a kid so therefore it must be true.
Funny, here I thought that deviating from the basic principles and/or postulates of math or logic leads to often-fascinating (for us geeks) alternate systems of math, logic/metalogic, etc. Sometimes these alternate versions are actually useful for mapping out abstract and fairly non-intuitive (or semiotically "messy" or "fuzzy") systems.
But of course, even imagining the possibility of different forms of math and logic makes me a tool of Satan, I suppose.
Some things are easy to understand. You take two bananas from a bunch of two, you're left with two bananas in the bunch. It's simple because you can see it, touch it and it happens exactly the same way every time.
Other things are less easy to understand, such as someone asserting that there's only two bananas left because an invisible, inaudible, untouchable, omniscient construct makes it so.
I think I'll munch my (perfectly fashioned for my hand by a triune God?) bananas and ponder the question of how Mike A. Robinson managed to get this far in life without suffering a fatal idiocy overdose.
Mathematics is much older than the Abrahamic religions.
There are no "objective unchanging moral grounds", especially not in the Bible. Everything in there is subjective; "Thou shalt not kill", unless God tells you to. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's things", unless the daughter is really pretty, then just rape her and buy her from her father. Etc.
God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, but it was just a test. What is that but lying?
YOU presuppose God, because you were taught to presuppose God. I was not taught that, so I see humans acting on their own accord, using their intricate brains.
Where did God come from?
Congratulations, Mike!
So all the logic, planning and mathematics that go into planning a war and its weapons; its logic, strategies and armaments, delivery systems and annihilations, all come from God and lead to God!
Very enlightened and enlightening.
Newton saw mathematics as a way of describing God's creation. It was his goal to better understand the universe to become closer to Him. In all things he was pious and never once doubted God in all His glory.
Isaac Newton would strike you upside the head with a large stick and suggest you spend your life in Bedlam for soiling his ears with your rubbish.
Wow, you're, like, a genius. You're the first person ever to have the idea of "proving" the existence of your god through circular reasoning.
"For two plus three not to be four, anywhere at any time, requires a universal truth: which presupposes an all-knowing God (who supplies the moral law)."
No universal truth is required, the definitions of two and three are sufficient. Nor would a universal truth presuppose an all-knowing God even if it were required. Logic does not work that way.
"The use of mathematics demands morality."
But what morality? Biblical morality? You don't need to engage in a ballistics exercise or mathematically work out the best trajectory when you want to stone your children to death. You just chuck the stones.
It is possible you may have to use a bit of division to work out how to divide the belongings between the priests and the accusers etc, of a burned alive heretic. But really, it'll be more a case of, "Brother Cedric you can have his old socks, Bert can have his candles, I'll have his purse." Thinks. "Hmm! That's quite heavy isn't it?" Not much mathematical workings out involved there.
2+2=4 because + and N are defined that way.
2+2 = ((0+1)+1)+((0+1)+1) = (1+1+1+1) = 4
And that's all there is to it.
Time to test this theory...
Truine God rejected....check.
Here goes...
2+2=
5
OHNOES! LOGICAL SUICIDE, IT BURNS US!
One evil act plus another evil act equals two evil acts. Hey, so if I massacre millions AND torture millions more I must be moral according to Jesus. Praise Jesus, now lets go kill something!
Now this explains a lot about Christian morality.
When I was a child, I was so weak in math that it often brought me to tears. That was when I was being raised in a devoutly catholic environment.
Years later, when I wasn't getting religious drivel pounded into my head all the time, I took a basic math course in college, and aced it.
> The tri-unity of God--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--is inescapable if we want to make sense out of our world.
That's funny... because for life of me, I couldn't figure out why Christian divinity is described as these aspects. Seemingly arbitrary, hard to explain, clear as mud. I mean, take almost any polytheistic religion for comparison, and you see that the gods are supposed to represent something.
And you guys still haven't explained the theodicy satisfactorily. After putting a lot of thought to the matter, I came to the conclusion that if there is a god, he/she clearly isn't omnipotent. Problem solved with a simple explanation. Where's your brilliant logic now?
Well, it's not really supposed to be "God = Father + Son + HolyGhost" (where all of the variables are = 1), but rather "public class God implements Father, Son, HolyGhost". Or something like that. Go figure.
You're right, man; 2+2=4 does require a universal truth.
And that truth is 2+2= FUCKING 4.
Also, generic irony meter comment at "Deny God and you commit logical suicide."
The bible deity breaks his own universal code by murdering entire villages and promoting atrocities like rape in the OT. Condemnations of murder and rape can't be moral absolutes if they're justified in those instances. It would be like God decreeing from heaven that 2+2=5 to him, but to his people 2+2=4, and anyone who disagrees burns in hell. That doesn't make it so anymore than if a dictator held a gun to your head and demanded you agree with it.
Can't you use logs to prove that actually 2+2=3.99999999999999999999999999999999999?
Wow, guess that means theres no god
Pi is exactly 3!
But seriously, the reason we say that "2 + 3 = 5" has NOTHING to do with Christianity, for or against. Rather, we say that 2 + 3 = 5 because when mankind invented numbers, that is how they were designed to work. Count up 2 apples; count up a different set of 3 apples. Count them together, and lo and behold, you get 5 every time! THIS IS HOW NUMBERS WORK.
Meh...another Calvinist seeing that parallel that like Mathematics, God is absolute (and vice versa), and then elaborating on that. After all, Calvin was a lawyer! His systematic theology makes people think like Mr Robinson.
(Of course Calvinists do not like the idea of being branded "fundies", as fundies in today's culture = anti-intellectualism, weirdo Baptists that won't touch delicious beer and fine cigars.)
All mathematical statements are essentially tautologies. 2+2=4 is true only because the definitions of 2, 4, + and = make it true. God has nothing to do with it; it's a wholly human invention. The fact that we can apply common arithmetic to real-world problems by analogy doesn't change its essentially fictitious nature. There's plenty of mathematics that has nothing to do with anything in the real world.
So the fact that the father, son and holy spirit are, at the same time, individual entities AND the same thing is the starting point for all logic?
That explains a lot about fundy logic.
"The use of mathematics demands morality."
Bullshit. All mathematics demands is logic.
"Disclaim God and His moral law and there is no obligation to affirm that two plus two equal four"
Now you're talking out of your ass. You don't need a god to realize that what we define as two, when added to itself, will always equal what we define as four.
But I suppose that it's God's law which changes pi to mean 3.
I guarantee that I'd rather cross a bridge built by engineers using godless math rather than a bridge built by fundamentalists using biblical principles (and praying that it won't fall down).
The problem is, there is no reason to presuppose your god specifically. If I were, for example, and ancient Greek, I could just as easily insert Apollo into your comment and it would work just as well (that is to say, not at all).
Pretending for a second that a god is necessary for there to be absolute truths, you still need to prove that that god is your god, and not some other.
Actually, the only reason that those who argue 2+2=5 gets killed by 2+2=4 people who can compute artillery trajectory perfectly.
Natural selection at work, and nothing works better then all-out warfare.
Obviously Robinson stuck all of his fingers up his ass, so he simply could not count. It is way to complicated for him to start counting on toes.
Now, in base 3, 2+2=11. Obviously the trinity would use base 3, so 2+2=4 is false except on earth where animals inherited five digits on an appendage from some fish that climbed onto land.
Urania, muse of star-related stuff and mathematics, doesn't appreciate you leaving her out of the equation.
Heh. Equation. See what I did there?
Personally I've always thought the truth is important because it's the motherfucking truth, and anything else is wrong.
But that's just a sane mans opinion.
"God is the precondition for all logic and morality."
"The tri-unity of God--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--is inescapable if we want to make sense out of our world."
fnords
Fail.
Believe it or not, I've seen this drivel before. It comes from a school of delusional apologists (Bahnsen?) that also believe there's nothing wrong with circular logic as long as it proves what you set out to prove.
God's law commands all men to tell the truth and forbids lying. This is the reason we "ought" to affirm two plus three equal five.
So do computers, which run on mathematics, have a moral code? Do programmers include morality into their programs to ensure they run correctly?
(Besides the rest of this post, which makes no logical sense at all;)
""A" cannot be "A" and "non-A" at the same time, in the same way"
Schrodinger says you fail!
No, if math required god then all proofs would just read:
"GODDIDIT"
which seriously doesn't get us anywhere. Why are you people so adamant about slowing down progress for EVERYONE!
Riiiiiight.
Tell me this, my learned fellow: how does your take on mathematics and science in general mesh with, say, the quantum theory? Or a subset thereof like the uncertainty principle? Particle-wave duality?
[silence]
Yeah, that's what I thought. Run along now and leave math and physics to those who understand how it works.
I do not need Jesus to help me with my math homework, thanks.
Or Thor, or Zeus for that matter.
Though Thor is a pretty cool guy...
Except that mathematics has nothing to do with morality; it has to do with observable reality. 2+2 isn't 4 because it's "good for it to be 4". It's because when you take two items and you add two more items, you end up with four items. You don't affirm these truths because it's good to do so; you affirm them because to not do so indicates that you perceive reality in a way wholly different from those around you, and that sort of thing results in ostracism among other problems.
Presupposing God as the solution to all questions means that we don't have to ask anymore questions. We've answered them all already.
I'm afraid the only one committing logical suicide is you, my friend.
Oh and my computer uses math. It's amoral, by the way.
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! *passes the ranch dressing around for all the people here on FSTDT so they can actually TRY to swallow this word salad*
Ive got news for you buddy... MORAL LAWS and LAWS OF NATURE have NOTHING to do with eachother. Methinks you dont understand science or nature. Furthermore... we can prove that math is reliable and true... that it is dependable. Can you say the same thing about your God? Didnt think so. Im so glad I dont follow the Babble or get brainwashed into this bullshit and can think for myself.
Basically, what he's saying, I think, is that the reason 2+2=4 is because God says so. And if God did not exist no one would regulate this, and 2+3 would equal every number at once, collapsing the universe into a singularity.
Or something, I dunno.
...So if I understand you correctly, atheist mathematics are entirely different from Christian mathematics.
I'm still waiting for Casio or Texas Instruments to corner the market on pocket calculators for atheists.
Failure 1: Affirming a mathematical or logical truth does not require "moral grounds". You have no moral obligation to agree with them, you have logical ones. It's not "accept it or you are bad" , it's "accept it or you are incorrect". Wrong (immoral)=/=Wrong (incorrect).
As a result of these three shortcomings, the last paragraph is simply chest-beating; the presentation of a faulty conclusion.
So, lack of morality equals lying always?
Morality. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
WARNING: BRAIN-DEAD COSMIC ZOMBIE DETECTED.
*scanning*
...............
So we can thank religion, not science for all our advancements in medicine, engineering, and understanding of the physical world. For you "stupid" is an understatement.
This is Greek philosophy, tho this guy has made his own Christian hash out of it. It's not as crazy as it sounds. In this approach, reason is the window into divinity.
Plato says one is not number, one is the measure of number.
And number can only be seen with the mind. IOW number and mathematics constitutes an alternate invisible reality.
You can't have any reality without being able to distinguishing the things around you; every time you perceive a unity eg a leaf a twig a branch a tree a grove a forest etc you are perceiving a "one". Every one is a manifestation of THE one, or one per se, or the One itself.
Not bad for a rant...
@ justfornow --
And every cloud is a manifestation of Platonic cloud-ness, and every river is a manifestation of the idea of the river, and the landscape is really just an imperfect manifestation of the map. Most branches of philosophy got past that stage centuries ago.
An unchanging God? Yeah, right!
Should we then reject all of the OT?
A god that says "Thou shalt not kill" and then goes on to murder every single person on the planet during a flood, and tells his people to kill their kin and neighbors for petty things is not a logical god, an unchanging god, a god that makes sense.
I'll think I'll stick to reality, thank you very much.
Mike A. Robinson, you've clearly already committed logical suicide, because I couldn't find anything in you comment that even came close to proving your point, if you ever had one.
I call verbiage. Or Poe.
And I can't resist pointing out that you are perfectly happy to have God, the three-is-one, one-is-three, illogical existence as the basis for all logic, and for numbers having only one value. By using your 'triune' number system, 2 = 6,2, and 2+3 = 15,5 - in other words, your mathematics' 'certainties' are only assumptions which are impossible to prove true or false. Much like your religion's 'truths'.
> Disclaim God and His moral law and there is no obligation to affirm that two plus two equal four
There is an obligation that 2+2=4. It's this really amazing thing... we call it LOGIC.
Sorry, but mathematics was created by people to model reality. Also, if God's the only thing that's stopping you from lying, you're morally bankrupt.
I'd point out the obvious failure of saying math and logic require belief in God, but I'm too busy being imagining the therapy bill for that poor thesaurus of his, because how else would someone this dumb be able to write this pretentiously?
I can't even make fun of you, because you've already done it yourself.God's law commands all men to tell the truth and forbids lying. This is the reason we "ought" to affirm two plus three equal five. make it 6. It'd still be 5, and I'd be a liar.How fucking hard is this to understand?
Two items plus three items equal five items ...even if magpies and monkeys are doing it. Even before people put names onto numbers and learned to count, it was true. Even if nobody hears those two trees and those other three trees fall in the forest, we still have a number of trees down. PEOPLE call that number "five", but the trees are still there on the ground even if nobody ever counts them.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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