Theology

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Sound Math and the Bible

May 17, 2007 in Logic/Math, Theology | 2 comments

I’m usually quite interested in the attempts of individuals to apply math to the Bible, and the Church Hopping blog has a fun little article about some people that are actually using interesting mathematical principles on the text of the Bible. Check it out.

UPDATE: Daniel from the Logos Blog has contacted me about a great post over on that site. As he said, “Thought you might be interested in today’s Logos Blog post looking at The Top 50 People in the Bible and using the IBM Many Eyes visualization. Cool thing is that anyone can play around with the charts and data…” Check it out here.

TED Talk Suggestions/The Problem of Evil

April 28, 2007 in Theology | No comments

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the TED conference, but if you don’t know anything about it I suggest checking out their website here. The yearly conference focuses on technology, entertainment, and design, and it defines its mission as “spreading ideas”. You can watch most of the conference talks on this website. There are some serious gems that you should watch. I suggest the following:

Also, I just watched the following presentation made by the Reverend Tom Honey. As the brief synopsis of the talk indicates, “It’s a classic problem in theology: How can the existence of evil be reconciled with a God who is supposed to be all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful? Many Christian thinkers have attempted answers to this question. In the days following the thousands of personal tragedies recorded during the South Asian tsunami of 2004, Tom Honey pondered those answers and found them wanting. Instead, he penned his own, personal, and sometimes dramatic response to the tsunami. This is a courageous talk for a Church of England vicar to have given. It concludes that certain traditional concepts of God just won’t do … and calls for believers and nonbelievers alike to dig deeper in their quest for truth.”

I was extremely impressed with his thoughts. None of them were particularly new to me, but this talk does provide a good theological redux of the issues involved in the current debate over the problem of evil. It’s an extremely personal and honest appraisal of thought, and I enjoyed listening to it.

Is America Too Damn Religious?

March 8, 2007 in Editorial, Theology | No comments

NPR. Yesterday I listened to a fantastic podcast from the NPR program Intelligence Squared U.S.. From the website, “Intelligence Squared U.S. brings Oxford-style debating to America – one motion, one moderator, three panelists for the motion and against.” The specific program I listened to examines the question, “Is America Too Damn Religious?”, which is a particularly fascinating question to me. The panelists present a scope of different opinions on this issue, and most of the comments are well thought out. Everyone is generally respectful, which is a trait I find important in this type of programming. The reflections are at times theological, political, and practical, which was an interesting mixture to listen to. The entire program can be found here. It’s possible to download a free MP3 version of the program on this page. For those of you with iTunes, you can also find an abbreviated version of the debate by looking for the Intelligence Squared U.S. podcast (which is also free). The entire debate runs about 1.5 hours (the abbreviated podcast is about 1 hour), but I think it’s worth it. For those familiar with the issues surrounding this debate I wouldn’t expect to find too much new information, but what I thought was interesting was the particular representation of viewpoints associated with the panelists.

Evolution and Probability

September 5, 2006 in Statistics, Theology | No comments

Animal Creation.There’s an interesting article over at ABC News explaining that the number of Americans buying into evolutionary theory has been in decline. The story attributes this surge of opinion to several sources, including “religious fundamentalism, inadequate science education, and partisan political maneuvering”. While I’m not currently interested in discussing the relevancy of these possibilities, the article also talks about the misuse of probability theory by creationists. Here’s a snippet of the argument:

A bit more specifically, the standard argument goes roughly as follows. A very long sequence of individually improbable mutations must occur in order for a species or a biological process to evolve. If we assume these are independent events, then the probability of all of them occurring and occurring in the right order is the product of their respective probabilities, which is always an extremely tiny number. Thus, for example, the probability of getting a 3, 2, 6, 2, and 5 when rolling a single die five times is 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 or 1/7,776 — one chance in 7,776.

Check out the above link to read the rest of the story.

During My Drive

June 4, 2006 in Editorial, Theology | 1 comment

1, 5, 4, 9, ...While driving home from Bethel Park today I saw two somewhat “interesting”, if not troubling, sites:

1. On a church marquee I saw the following: “Roadmap to heaven: turn right and go straight.” There are so many ways to disagree with this assertion that I don’t even know where to start. So I won’t. I relate it merely for your possible amusement.

2. I saw a PA license plate with the specialized message “GCC GRAD”, which I’m assuming stood for “Grove City College Graduate”. Grove City College, my undergraduate alma mater, is a fairly right-wing Christian school. The car which the license plate was attached to was a large SUV. Inconsistent? Sheesh…

π in the Bible

April 5, 2006 in Logic/Math, Theology | No comments

It happens to be the case that there are two different verses in the Old Testament which provide for an approximation of π. In the NIV translation both I Kings 7:23 and II Chronicles 4:2 give the following measurements for a tank which would be enclosed in the “First” Temple:

He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.

Taking these measurements along with the ratio for π given as circumference over diameter we have a coarse approximation for π of 3. While not astounding in accuracy, I’m always excited to see how subtle tidbits of mathematics invade even religious scripture. In other words, sometimes math is beautifully inescapable.

In you’re interested in learning more about these two verses I suggest reading an article called “On the Rabbinical Exegesis of an Enhanced Biblical Value of π” written by Shlomo Edward G. Belaga. An online version of the article can be found here. The article surmises that the Biblical narrative lends itself to a much more accurate approximation of π. It’s worth a look if you’re intrigued by such ideas.

A Parable of Sorts

March 29, 2006 in Theology | 1 comment

Not the measure of all things.While on a walk in the nearby forest I came across a lamb grazing in an open pasture. The lamb was home in this place. The sun beat down on the late autumn day as the animal trod graciously along the earth, frequently stopping to taste the fragrant grass beneath it. Wanting to learn more, in the way of my training, I took a step forward. Cautiously at first, I approached the lamb.

As I was equipped with a scale and a ruler, I took the lamb’s measurements. I observed its feeding methods and took note how it traveled along the yielding ground. I examined its wool, wondering the temperature the lamb underneath would be kept in the wintertime. I scrutinized its sound against other tones cataloged in my mind.

Having expended my options I took the lamb away with me to a lab, in order to continue experimentation. Wanting to capture its true nature in order to extend my findings to all who would study lambs after me, I painlessly took its life. Dissecting the lamb I noticed its organs and how its digestive system worked. I noted the distinction of its physiology to that of other animals. I cross-sectioned and test tubed and electrified and poked and prodded along in my studies.

Until in the end, as I gazed around me, I realized that the lamb was gone. Having taken it away with me, in the way of my training, I had taken the lamb to a place it did not want to travel. If I could relive that autumn walk, equipped with a scale and a ruler, I simply would have stopped to watch the lamb, for in the end I would have known it in a greater fullness.

Progressive Complexity (No Need to Fear)

January 9, 2006 in Logic/Math, Theology | 1 comment

If you have a stray hour here or there I highly suggest checking out my multimedia link for “The Elegant Universe”. It’s a 3 hour (broken into smaller segments) PBS adaptation of Brian Greene’s book of the same name. It surveys 20th century physics into the present, showing how the developments and subsequent mismatches of relativity and quantum mechanics are potentially bridged by string theory. The program is extremely accessible and informative. Even if you don’t consider yourself scientific I would recommend this one. I’ve said for a long time that if you wanted to follow the zeitgeist of the 20th century that all you had to do was follow the theories of the physicists (my hypothesis for the 21st is that we’ll be following the theories of the biologists). In other words, watching the program will bring you more than just a physics tutorial. As least I hope it does.

In this vein…

Once upon a time a man was branded as a heretic by the church for claiming that the earth was not the center of the universe. You may have heard of this man at some point in your life travels. It turns out he was right. Well, he was least slightly more right than the presently accepted truth. He posited that the sun was the center of the universe. Now we know that this is in fact not the case. Not only is the sun moving along with every other star in our galaxy, but our galaxy is also moving. Every galaxy is moving. To and fro the heavens move. What I’m getting at is that we’re never finished with discovering the beautiful and complex facts about existence. We shouldn’t be surprised when the popular understanding of reality is shaken beyond recognition. Nor should we be worried.

Even as I write this post scholars at the forefront of physics question whether our universe is unique or whether it is just one of an infinite number of universes. Does that possibility bother you? Think about it. An infinite number of universes. Well, I don’t think it should bother you. In fact, my belief is that it should comfort you. As we discover the deeper complexities of our universe I see more and more only the hands of God.

Similarly, I feel the same way about the so-called emerging worldviews. I embrace postmodernity. I embrace relativism. Not without question, but I do embrace them. New perspectives bring both greater clarity and greater confusion. It’s the job of those who care to help work out which is which. Will postmodernity or relativism destroy Christian or any other religious belief? Of course not. And if you believe that it will then you are naïve.

Look at relativity and quantum mechanics. They are two branches of physics that smart people have been trying to unite for the past half century. Alone, each tells us unique facts. But when these facts try to mesh together in the current spheres of thought there are inconsistencies. Does this mean that the two oppose one another? I don’t think it does. On one levels there is definite disagreement. But I believe with no doubt that there is a larger canvas through which the two fit in harmony. It is beyond right and wrong.

Why can’t we get past right and wrong? Why can’t we let go of trying to control everything we do? It is so utterly binding. There is always, I am convinced, one step farther down the line that explains the currently unanswerable. And at the end of this line I do believe that God stands with a smile.

My Tripolar Nature as a Blog Writer

October 20, 2005 in Editorial, Logic/Math, Theology | 2 comments

I’m not sure what to do with this website ultimately. I feel tripolar about it. First, I have all these random “state-of-the-union in-Ian’s-life” stuff, comprised of dreams and musings and incoherent nonsense. Some of the posts in this category are probably better off somewhere else, but I know that there’s probably someone out there that likes to read them.

Next I have the logic and math stuff, which I’m currently pursuing educationally. I love this stuff, but when I post about it I realize that just about no one is going to read it or understand it (unless they expressly came here to check out what I’m doing at Carnegie Mellon, which is a possibility). I do recommend that even if you don’t have any desire to learn anything about math/logic that you try to read one or two papers/posts anyway. Some of the ideas behind the papers are easily grasped and philosophically extensive. It’s good stuff, and wherever I end up in life I’ll always respect these disciplines.

Lastly, I have all this theology stuff everywhere, which is something I’m passionate about. But the people who are coming here to read about logic/math are probably not at all interested in reading about Christian concepts of absolute truth in the postmodern age. Alas, for now they’ll just have to sift through the muck, although from a philosophical and cultural point of view some of the theology writings and website links are extremely informative even for thos who hold no faith.

So there it is. My tripolar nature. And I don’t apologize about it. It’s just not externally consistent. I hesitate to split this up into three separate blogs, but I may have to do it. Any suggestions from anyone out there?