Gunpowder, band-wagon and lot: Part 1

 

This post has nothing to do with Guy Fawkes or gunpowder except insofar that strong personal beliefs can lead people to do whacky and horrendous exploits. Many of these, thankfully, are relatively benign but they can still adversely affect innocent peoples' lives. And every so often a belief will culminate in something as severe as a plot to overthrow a government.

Some examples include the flat earthers, holocaust deniers, possibly even the more extreme pro-Trumpers. What about so called Christian outfits like tele-evangelist Benny Hinn, Bethel Redding, Hill Song? Or the whole Charismatic movement with its emphasis on "spiritual gifts"? Or creationists, atheists. Don't get me wrong here: I am not condemning or condoning any particular belief: let each man be fully persuaded in his own mind. But I notice that each of these entities use a mix of peer pressure, playing on emotions, mass hysteria, exclusivity, suggestion and even hypnosis to promote their ideologies, even if unwittingly. 

Sometimes labelled "radical", "extreme", "cult" or "conspiracy theory", they can be recognised through non-sequiturs and other nonsense appearing in their teachings. An example in a recent search for sanity I happened upon in a YouTube video The #1 reason evolution is impossible saddened me because the #1 reason, though thoughtfully presented, was flawed from the outset as any Physicist would tell you. Just scroll down the comments.

It has been said that we humans have a God shaped hole that yearns to be filled. Perhaps there is more in this than meets the eye. Just as a dog likes nothing more than to play catch, perhaps the need for religion is just a part of the make-up of every human which has evolved over millions of years as a sort of defence mechanism to give us some sense of meaning to life or, if you prefer, was placed there by the Creator as a proof of existence. The idea is explored in more detail here. After all, about 84% of the current world population identify with a religious group and that does not include atheists (who also take their position on faith). And 75% of US adults identify as Christian. Can they all be wrong? Well, actually, yes - if it be that humans are born with this need no more or less than being born with two legs. And if so be, it does not follow necessarily that God exists.

And so I come to relate the sad case of the Irish Dodo...

(to be continued in Part 2)

The God of chance

The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.  (Proverbs 16:33)

Casting lots was a method used in the Old Testament to determine the "will of God". This verse was quoted in this morning's sermon to show that God still controls outcomes so that there is no such thing as "chance" regarding events in our lives.

My son has four girls. If they were to have a fifth - what would be the probability (i.e. chance) of it being a girl? A trick question and of course the "correct" answer according to statistics is about 49%.  But actually, quite apart from God, it is somewhat meaningless to talk statistics when the sample size is so small. The best one can say is that it will certainly be either a girl or a boy. Or, if you believe in the God of Proverbs 16, that it will be the exact sex that God appoints. And so were born two boys: John to be "the Baptist" and Jesus "the son of God".

So, if indeed God interferes with the laws of chance, doubt is cast on the outcome of physical phenomena that the law is supposed to govern.  And modern physics is all about probability.  Enter quantum mechanics with Schrödinger's cat and Maxwell's demon, Bose–Einstein statistics and Fermi–Dirac statistics and wot-not. Carbon 14, and any other radioactive-isotope, dating not only assumes that things were then as they are now, but also depends on probability.

Maybe God putting his spanner in the works and tweaking chance explains miracles, and could even justify creation. Like as in the angel Gabriel's For with God nothing shall be impossible. (Luke 1:37)

Not that I can prove this anymore than I could predict the sex of my son's fifth child. Indeed the point about the "thought experiment" named Schrödinger's cat is that, according to quantum mechanics the cat is both dead and alive at the same time and this reality collapses into one or other possibility only when the box is opened and the cat is observed. I'll only know for such when my daughter-in-law gives birth (or is scanned)... in the unlikely event that they have a fifth child!

Creation or Consequence?

In the process of moving my office I have been sorting through some old papers and came across the following text which I wrote many moons ago whilst at college, laying in the grass one summer's day in the Botanic Garden.  Since then I ought have become wiser...

"The question "creation, or consequence" arose in connection with a study of musical compositions. To what degree was the composer truly creating his music, as opposed to it coming about due to consequence? It is creativity that is said to distinguish the artist from the mere craftsman, but what if even what we call creativity is really a subtler form of consequential happening?

"For convenience we can resolve any action into its components of so much creation and so much consequence. This of course is only possible if there is such a thing a creation. However, since all events can relate to those that have gone before, creation is never tangible except in the first event of an isolated system.

"The popular assumption that creation does not exist leads many people into incalculable quandaries, especially in the sphere of religion. They say "God created the world and all that is in the world". One might answer "Ah-ha - but what it the world were without beginning, then we could ascribe all creation to consequence" (thus doing away with the need for God). It is interesting to note here that Jewish mythology actually ascribes only the beginning of everything, including the beginning of man, to creation whilst all other formations are consequences."

What little wisdom I have gained since those days of idyllic summer picnics in punts on the Cherwell would suggest that the vast majority (if not all) of what I think I create is actually at best only consequence or simply plagiarism. But maybe that is because I am more craftsman than artist, more engineer than scientist, more practical than spiritual.

There's more stuff in this file too - probably of little interest to anyone but myself but we'll see...