On The Gospels

I find it difficult to accredit the Gospels with an excessive amount in terms of historical nature. They are essential to Christianity, and are a fine piece of literature if they are to be read as such. Yet from the point of the historian how ought they to be received?

As Professor Thomas F.X. Noble has stated, a major problem with the Jesus narratives is the fact that there is nothing to cross-reference them with. Mathew’s Gospel is probably the oldest, with Luke and Mark probably knowing his gospel. John’s Gospel is somewhat unique to the others, but it still tells, to an extent, the same story. There are other Gospels such as (Bloom’s favorite) the Gospel of Thomas, as well as the apocryphal Gospels, but the four canonical gospels have been the primary sources for the life of Jesus the past two millennia.

It is somewhat probably that the man we have today come to think of as Jesus of Nazareth did actually exist. Tacitus and Josephus apparently make some passing remarks about the man Jesus, but there are some theories that exist about these. One is the idea that later historians have doctored the original texts (blasphemy, I know) to include Jesus. I hope this is not the case but it cannot be ruled out. However, I doubt this.

So, the man Jesus did indeed exist. However, the gospels present a clear conflict. Actually, they present many, but some are starker than the others. The first of which is the notion of time. When was Jesus born, and when did he die? The major conflict in this is that the gospels (my capitalization in this piece needs editing) is that at one point they claim he was born during the reign of Herod, but then say there was a census in the year of his birth. As Noble puts it, you need to pick one: census or Herod; you cannot have both.

There are a multitude of other contradictions, ambiguities, and physical impossibilities encapsulated within the Gospels. If they are to be taken as literal history, they fall very short of any respectable sort of history or historiography. But the Gospels are not meant to be read as pure history. Some of the basic facts and the structural outline (besides the virgin birth, but this entire concept is probably just an error in translation that has greatly affected the western tradition, but another essay another time) of his life are generally accepted as true, or at least possible. For example, the crucifixion is a possible historical truth; Pilate was indeed in charge of punishing criminals, and crucifixion was a means of taking the life of a criminal. Yet improbabilities abound, there are indeed questions. For example, Jesus was arrested at night, which is unlikely, for most were carried out during the day. There are a multitude of others of these parts of the life of Jesus that are not necessarily falsities, but are not in tune with the regular goings on of typical Roman life. For example, the region where Jesus was raised is described as a rural area where in fact archaeology has shown that it was more of a bustling urban centre in the early first century AD/CE.

I feel it proper to address the notion that most of Jesus’ life is deeply shrouded in mystery, and many of his years we know literally nothing about. It is also clear that we know little about his family. Very little of the life of a man who is the essential figure to the longest lasting institution in the western world is known. When compared to other figures of comparable importance such as Confucius or Mohammed much more is known. However, a figure such as Zoroaster (Zarathustra) has less historical information written about him than Jesus (excuse the grammar in that sentence). Siddhartha’s life is also shrouded in mystery, but we still know a decent amount. Lao-Tzu is similar to Zarathustra, and it is still a great mystery of Lao-Tzu existed. It is probable that Zoroaster existed, but the question is when. His life has been dated from anywhere from 3000 years ago to 2500 years ago. At least with Jesus we know that the Jesus movement started some 2000 years ago, and we are positive within decade or so.

To recapitulate, hitherto the fact that the gospels are fairly unreliable historically outside the fact that Jesus of Nazareth (Ιησούς Χριστός, c. -6 – 27) probably existed has been discussed and the historical nature of the man and his life causes great distress for historians. Yet the Gospel can be, and have primarily been read for something other than their historical nature; they have been read as religious or inspirational literature. The man Jesus portrayed in the gospels is unparalleled in terms of his righteousness and power; and if Jesus is God, and Jesus is the incarnation/son of God then God is good. The profundity of this claim is immense. The fact that God is good (ignore the problem of what is good and what is evil for right now) is a profound notion. Through the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament, but Bloom says no self respecting Jew calls the Hebrew Bible the Old Testament, and as an ethnic Jew I refer to it as the Hebrew Bible), God is shown to have chosen the Jews as a whole, but not every single one is infallible. God is shown to be wrathful and vengeful in Genesis (especially in Noah, Genesis 6-9) and especially in Job, and his absolute righteousness is sometimes thrown into question. The Jesus syllogism shows that God is good, and that is a cornerstone aspect of Christianity.

In viewing the Gospels in terms of devotional literature outside of the fact that God is good, Jesus is portrayed as the perfect human being; Jesus is infallible. Briefly I would like to state that Jesus drank wine, and I believe that any drug use is a great vice so that bothers me. Regardless, Jesus as the embodiment of the divine being gives Christians a model human to use as a role model. Jesus is perfect in his morality, and so one should ask “what would Jesus do?” For if God is infinitely wise, and Jesus is God, Jesus is infinitely wise, and we ought to follow Jesus. I must say, that if everyone embodied the spirit of Christ then this world would at least be a more peaceful place.

The last aspect of the Gospels as prime religious literature is in their purpose. The Gospels were written as Christian literature, and it can be argued that they ought not to be analyzed as anything but that. To look for historical nature in them might be looking in the wrong area. Still, the Gospels are powerful pieces of religious literature that are to be taken seriously by the believer. A final thought on reading the Gospels as religious literature is that they might be best read as part fact and part metaphor/allegory that combine to form a picture of a guide to a better life. What if Jesus is not the son of God, or divine at all, but rather a preacher who preaches the way to a “better” and “happier” life. Take for example Jesus’ turning of the water into wine (I am aware this is slightly out of context). An interpretation of this is that he literally did not take H20 molecules and turn them into wine, but with Christ in your life it is so incredible that even something as simple as water can feel like the ecstasy (I don’t drink for the record) of wine. Are the Gospels to be taken literally? If they are history than yes, for in true history there is no exaggeration, 20,000 men means 20,000 men, not 100,000 or 2,000. However, the Gospels are religious literature, so a miracle that appears to violate the laws of physics or nature is probably not literally the act that is reported. It is probably a symbol or metaphor and if it is supposed to literally signify a miracle I have excessive trouble attaching any credibility to it.

If the Gospels are not to be read as history or as Christian literature, how are they to be read? The next main way in which the Gospels are to be read is as literature. In terms of literature, they are the narrative of a wise preacher written in a fairly interesting style with a very deep philosophical meaning. They are then attached to the canon of Greek literature, cementing it as one of the proudest literary traditions of all time, probably only the English literary tradition can eclipse it. Granted the Greek literary tradition is very strong on its own, but if the Gospels are to be included it only increases its greatness. Many a literary critic, especially in recent times, e.g. the man I reference all too often because he is my favorite critic, Harold Bloom, has read them as high literature. He is by no means the first to do so but his recent criticisms of them are quite profound. This is personally my favorite way of reading the Gospels, although I am only a budding scholar of religion and literature and have not read them multiple times for the most part, and I do not have an extreme familiarity with them, and I do not claim to. Yet it is fact that the Gospels have been read as high literature, and will continue to be read as such in our increasing secularizing West.

The last way to view the Gospels, or the last one that shall be discussed, is as wisdom literature. This is basically reading them as religious literature but without the religion, or adding them onto the canon of biblical wisdom literature a la Job and Ecclesiastes and possibly the apocryphal wisdom in Ecclesiasticus and The Gospel of Thomas which has been primarily read as a wisdom book as opposed to an insight into Jesus himself. This will be treating each Gospel individually, and as a source of wisdom, and the fact that they follow the same protagonist is irrelevant.

In summation, the Gospels have hitherto been taken as history by much of Christendom. However, they are quite historically unreliable; yet most gospel readers are not looking for history, they are looking for wisdom or religious inspiration; whether they tell the actual story of Jesus of Nazareth is irrelevant. Lastly, the Gospels have been read as works of high literature, which (after the heart of Simone Weil) have been taken in the wonderful tradition of Greek literature. To view Jesus as a Greek philosopher (as Weil did) and the Gospels as works comparable to the Homeric epics may be to get the most out of Jesus Christ, and the early Christian tradition.

On Heaven

As an atheist religious thinker (it is not an oxymoron), heaven is something that is worth thinking about. These are some thoughts on the subject, and these are by no means my final ideas, but it is at least my present thoughts. I am aure that any reader can pick out some obvious flaws with my conception, and I have repeated myself some. Yet I feel it was worth putting my ideas down on paper and publishing them.


It is impossible to know (ignore the philosophical implications of the word ‘know’ for right now) what happens to us after we die. There is no proof positive method of determining what happens, if anything after we die. To borrow an example from Peter Kreeft, it is as if we are unborn children arguing about what life is like outside of the womb. Hoverer, since it is probable that we will be dead longer than we are alive, it is worth speculating about. I claim not to know or to reach and proof, or even move closer to what Heaven is like, but because I am a speculative budding religious thinker/philosopher it is an issue essential to the world religious tradition and it is of paramount importance in the spiritual thought of mankind.

I intend not to perform a comprehensive study of heaven and its counterpart hell here. My objective is to examine the Christian and Muslim ideas of the places and my own vision of what heaven should be, though I believe it doesn’t exit. For the former tradition, heaven is a place where God/Jesus, the Angels, and the Saints reside for all eternity. In Islam, it is a garden of paradise full of immense pleasures. Some Muslim Mystics (pardon the unintentional alliteration) believed that heaven was full of wine and virgins and revelry.

But first the Christian tradition. Christian heaven is something that is not necessarily clear however there are some characteristics that are unique to Christianity. In somewhat of a paradox, we learn most about heaven through examining hell. Hell is the eternal domicile of the damned, those who were blasphemers, and those who were not worthy of being in the realm of God. Well, if all those people go to hell then who goes to heaven? Remember, all dogs go to heaven (sorry I could not resist). Heaven is the realm of the faithful, the saints, the angels, and God. The principle Christian texts do not discuss heaven much, mainly because the focus is not on going to heaven; it is not going to hell. Hell’s magnitude of depravity is much worse than heaven’s level of perfection. So getting to heaven is not the focus, it is first don’t go to hell, and then live a life of perfection. Yet Christian heaven is very different from Muslim heaven. This is probably because it is a faux pas on my part to call it heaven. The correct English term is probably paradise. But in Christianity, is heaven paradise? The classic idea of paradise is a perfect world, but there is an underlying notion of excessive pleasure in paradise, whereas heaven is the realm of the lord. But if the lord is perfect, shouldn’t his kingdom also be the most desirable place in the world?

My first issue with the idea of Christian heaven is its boringness. I believe that Muslim paradise may be more interesting, but not necessarily more ideal. The fact that sins are permitted in heaven is exceedingly disturbing to me. If the realm is perfect, and vices are morally wrong, how can they be permitted in heaven? There is at last one ambiguity or contradiction here. So if the Christian ideal is to be benevolent to others, and especially the less fortunate, and to praise God, what is there to do but praise God if there are not any who are less fortunate? So is heaven just constant prayer? I would not assume that one sleeps in heaven, or has to eat in heaven, so if all I do in heaven is praise god, then maybe hell is the more favorable option (Huck Finn agrees).

I would now like to point out the obvious problems with heaven. It is clear to me that heaven may just be an idea, an idea of a better world on earth, but since so many have taken the idea literally it must be fundamentally explored. First, where is Heaven? I do not think it is in Detroit, but I may be wrong. Next, does one have a body in heaven? If so, which body is it? Is it our own body, and is it the last body we had? If we do indeed not have a body in heaven, then what do we exist as? If we have a body, do we sleep in heaven? Do we produce waste in heaven? I would be inclined to say no considering heaven is perfect. Is there sex in heaven (this question shall be addressed)? Next, can one converse with other souls in heaven, or is he doomed to solidarity? Is it just Homo sapiens who go to heaven, or do Homo erecti, Homo habiles, (I am trying to pluralize these but I am unsure even with my two and a half years plus of Latin schooling), Neanderthals, and those who are not human such as animals, insects, communists, and bacteria? Can one talk to God in heaven? Clearly he would be a popular guy, considering he is the creator.

With the literal questions out of the way, it is now time to begin the comparative section of this piece: Muslim paradise versus Christian heaven. To recapitulate, the former is a brilliant garden full of the bodily pleasures and the latter is the realms of God, the saints, the pious and the angels. The main difference is that the vices are explored to excess in Muslim paradise. This is an extremely striking point of Muslim heaven which is disturbing to some modern scholars.

I would first like to point out the thought of sex in heaven. It appears to me that some sort of human before Homo sapiens had evolved enough that procreation could no longer be done by instinct, so somehow sex became an enjoyable activity due to the high concentration of nerves specific areas of the body. So the objective was completed; it is unlikely any time soon that humans will not be creating enough new lives to sustain the species. But if there is no need, or I would argue no possibility for someone to give birth in heaven. So why would sex be performed in heaven? It is possible that this was a fantasy that would be used to propel the religion, but Islam was probably powerful enough with a heaven void of wine and virgins to sell itself without the idea of paradise. If we are to go religion shopping it appears that the Muslim idea of the afterlife is the most favorable (actually I would contest that due to the lack of intellectual productivity but to most sixteen year-old males), but I doubt that a majority of the people who have converted to Islam in the past fourteen centuries is due to the afterlife, but it would probably not discourage people.

I believe that the idea of writing about this piece was inspired by Peter Kreeft in his lecture on Faith and Reason (I am unsure how to punctuate that exactly so I have underlined it). Kreeft discussed the idea of sex in heaven, and the thought disturbed me greatly due to the biological paradox I have hitherto stated. A friend of mine showed me an essay of a university student to the question of chemistry in hell which shows that there are still inquiries as to the nature of heaven and hell.

Next to address the problem of wine in heaven. First of all, wine is not permitted under Islamic law. However, Rumi, Hafiz and countless other Muslim poets, mystics, etc. have been quite enamored with alcohol. Note that I am extremely against any drug use of any kind, and I have zero tolerance, so if I am being overly biased here this is a source. But the idea of wine in heaven is problematic for a few reasons. One of the reasons is the nature of wine. Wine is used to remove one from reality (if you will) and transport them to a place where life is, for a short time, favorable to the present life. However, if paradise is a perfect realm, why would one need wine. If I can lounge in the gardens of Eden, why would I need wine? This suggest to me that paradise is not perfect. Granted, there are different levels of paradise, and the saints and martyrs occupy the greatest level, shouldn’t heaven at least be good enough that one would not desire to escape from them?

Another extreme issue with this is the idea that wine is not allowed under Islam! How can there be something legal in heaven that is illegal on Earth? The nature of wine, as I have said, is to remove one from the present life, and elevate one to a state that is more desirable. Well how can one want to get drunk in paradise? It appears that if paradise were the ultimate perfect place one would not want to drink alcohol for it removes one from the perfection of heaven. It can be argued that wine only makes life better, and increases the perfection of heaven, but then it gets messy having to deal with different levels of perfection, and if the garden of paradise is perfect how could it get any better? So, on its own I reject the idea of wine in any sort of paradise.

To recapitulate, I dislike the Christian idea of heaven because it is boring and there is an obsession with prayer and I dislike Muslim heaven because it is a place where the vices are exploited. Now for my own idea of heaven; be cognizant that I view Harvard University as the kingdom of heaven on earth. I believe that if God does indeed exist, heaven should be a place where all the humans who have died go. However, I would have two parts of heaven. The first is where everyone goes directly after they die. It is a place where they have someone/something help them reflect on their lives, and see where they did well and where they did poorly. Until they understand what they did right and what they did wrong, and feel genuine remorse for anything wrong they did, be it a massacre of millions of people, or if they accidentally closed the elevator on someone who was close enough but they did not see them, anything wrong they did they see and feel remorse for (I do not know if I am allowed to end a sentence with for, but regardless I have decided to). After that people gain admittance to heaven; yes every single person. Everyone from an innocent child who died ten minutes after he was born, to Adolf Hitler is allowed to go to heaven, when they realise all the bad acts they committed on earth. In heaven, everyone looks the same, but people know who is who. There is no sex in heaven, no drugs, no sleep, and none of the human functions that are committed on earth. The human imperfection (I do not believe in original sin, but it is an intriguing idea) is nonexistent in heaven, and one lives eternally with the ability to meet whoever one wants, with an infinite ability to learn. There are not any mysteries in heaven, for God is all-knowing, and in his kingdom there are no mysteries. Heaven is a paradise of equality and it is the realm of God.

A piece that reminded me of my idea of heaven, and most likely influenced my idea of heaven, if not just reinforced it was Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless you Dr. Kevorkian. It was essentially Vonnegut’s idea of heaven, and he agreed that all people go to heaven. It was quite the spectacular work, even thought it numbered about seventy-five pages. If one is to read it, they will see some commonalities between Vonnegut and me.

Allow me to restate that this is my idea of Heaven, assuming that god exists and that it exists. It is by no means my final thoughts on it, but for right now it is what I think I believe heaven is. I am sure that if I were to write this tomorrow my thoughts would be slightly different, and I accept flaws. For right now it is what I believe, and it shall change, but these are my sentiments on heaven.

Two Short Works

Today I wrote two random pieces of a somewhat self-analytical nature Feel free to critique my grammar for I know that there was at least one error there.


I would like to write a short piece on education. I have been attempting for some time now to write a piece on why I hate the educational system, and how flawed it is, but the passion that I have for the topic makes anything that I have hitherto written unacceptable for the standards. My complete thoughts on the flawed educational system shall be written in due time, but I would like to arouse an interesting point. Over vacation, I learn much more than I do during school. Last vacation I read six or seven books, listening to lectures, had plenty of time to research and converse with some of my friends who are intellectuals. I can honestly say that in that vacation I learned much more than I did in the previous month of school. What that say is that the educational system is not nearly as efficient as it could be, and I say it runs at about fifteen percent efficiency, whereas the time spent on vacation is about seventy five percent efficiency.



On February 26 I wrote this piece, which is essentially the same thing in different wording, but I like ranting. I decided to include it here because I could, and I like the title two short works, but in reality it is three short works.

My major gripe with the educational system is its ineffectiveness and inefficiency as an educational system. The operative word in it educational, and it was not designed initially to educate; it was to instill Christian values and keep order in turn teaching the basic skills needed to succeed such as basic arithmetic. However, the educational structure is not contusive to such disciplines as history and languages.



I fear that in reading Bloom’s thesis on the anxiety of influence, I fear that it may be used on me in terms of philosophy. Am I just Nietzsche and Sartre with some naivety sprinkled on top? I would hope not, and I claim this because I have held many of my present views before reading Sartre and Nietzsche as extensively as I have hitherto (I must use that work in every piece it seems). It is clear that the case could be made that I am just Nietzsche in English only less worldly and less intelligent (but slightly better at arithmetic), yet I claim this is not the case for the reason I have already said, I trust in the intelligence of crowds more than Nietzsche did and I, for some reason, like the categorical imperative but that may change and it puzzles me why I even do, but in a godless universe it is striking. In conclusion, I am not just Sartre and Nietzsche reworked into English with less of a poetic talent but slightly more naïve and less experienced, but the Anxiety of Influence theory, when applied to philosophy, is interesting.

On Pascal's Pensees

I am currently working on a piece on heaven which will trump this piece. Discuss with me if you desire to talk about it.

After reading the Pensées of Blaise Pascal, I was thoroughly disappointed. For such an immaculate genius it was disturbing how set in his sentiments of the superiority of Christianity, and how much he deemed skepticism asinine. It is also striking his self-contradictory nature towards the Jews.

I do not at this point wish to go back through the text and explain myself perfectly, but I feel that writing my ideas down is paramount at this time. I would like to state some ambiguities that I remember, but I vow that this is the first draft of this extended work, and citations will be included.

First for the ambiguities. At one point, Pascal seems sympathetic towards the Jews, almost looking at them as if they Muslims viewed Jews within fifty years of the Muhammad (محمد). He first sees them as pious people who rejected the latest message (Jesus). However, these are only in sparing quotations, and I may have misinterpreted them. Later he turns very hostile towards the Jews, and calls Solomon infinitely inferior to Plato.

The next issue I have with Pascal is his critique of skepticism. In every instance except “The Wager” he is almost condescending towards skeptics. This is ironic because it is in extreme collocation with the rest of his writings. I have hitherto written on the wager so I will not discuss that here. Yet Pascal later seems to be angry towards skepticism. It appears paradoxically ironic to me that the man who formulated possibly the foremost argument for believing in God to then turn around and be exceedingly hostile toward skepticism. The fact that Pascal a man so enamored in the sciences to accept God is not only in a different pattern with many of the men of the age is noteworthy. However, Kepler and Newton were also devout theists, so a case could be made that the best scientists were also the most devout theists. Einstein is of the same breed of Newton in this respect.

Pascal’s work appears to be very repetitive and can be predictable at times. This is no fault of his, but he Pensées can become somewhat tedious to read. What I can critique is his lack of talent as an aphorist. What I am saying is his style is not striking, and I believe that many are much more talented. Yet this argument fails because I read a translation of the Pensées, and not the Pensées themselves (I probably should have stated already that the title means the thoughts), although he has not been praised too greatly for his prose.

I am well aware that this is a poor study of The Pensées, but again I just wanted to put down some thoughts. My closing remarks are that the Pensées fell very well short of my expectations. I expected a man of such genius to be able to produce something greater than he already did. To ignore the rest of the Pensées outside of The Wager may be a keen idea, but Pascal’s other writings cannot be ignored. A theory may be proposed where that Pascal was such a genius prodigy that he may have never grown up and been religious out of some sort of fear or inferiority. However I claim not to be a psychologist of any serious skill, so it is not the time to give Blaise Pascal a psychological profile, but I am throwing the idea out there. The Pensées fell quite short of expectation and Pascal should be remembered for his genius in science, mathematics and The Wager.

Critique of Kafka's The Trial

I was a sophomore in high school. Sorry.

On Job

I find it disgraceful to think that the Book of Job (איוב) has been included in the cannon of the Hebrew Bible. I find that in reading it from a number of different angles it is impossible to reconcile it with Judaism, and not only Judaism but morality, ethics, common sense, and any productive view of God. I find it in direct conflict with other Jewish doctrines, and some Christian doctrine to an extent, and it may be my least favorite thing I have ever read.

First to give a brief overview. The Book of Job was composed by an unknown author at an unknown time in history. I believe that it predates Ecclesiastes, but there is no concrete evidence of this. The basic story is God makes a bet with Satan that a man named Job who has been completely faithful to God his entire life, and has been blessed with a good family and a stable lifestyle. However, Satan claims that if God were to take all this away from Job then Job will no longer praise his name. Yet God, in an immaculate stoke of genius decides to stoop to Satan’s level and takes him up on his offer. So God systematically takes away everything that Job has, leaving him with no property and worst of all no family. Yet in the end, Job decides to still praise God. And God wins the bet with Satan, proving that no matter what God does to Job he will still worship God. It is important to note that the Christian tradition views this character as Satan, and the Jewish as “The Adversary.”

In attacking this atrocity of the Biblical Cannon, I would like to say that this is in direct conflict with the God of other parts of the Bible. From now on the Bible will be used just in terms of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament if you are a member of Christianity. It is first important to note that there is not a uniform idea of God, Yahweh, VHWH, Adonai, Eloheim, or whatever you want to call him/her/it/God. I like to think that the idea of God put forth in Genesis written by The J Writer or as some like to call The Yawhist, is the idea of God that is most Jewish. Granted, parts of Genesis are taken from Gilgamesh, possibly some myths of Sargon II, as well as many other sources. So to address this, a portrait of the God of Judaism must first be drawn.

The God of Genesis is a tribal deity. He is a God who is the ultimate creator, and there is no one above him; the exalted one, oh most high. He has chosen the Jewish people, and he loves and will protect them, given they follow his commandments, especially what he tells them specifically. It is important to note that God decides, arbitrarily, to talk to certain people. God has not developed itself into the form of Judaism it was even in the Rabbinic Period (c. -200-250), so this is God in his most elementary form. The God of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Hosea, Nehemiah, and all the rest of the prophets is different from the God in Genesis and to an extent Exodus. But the essence of God is a creator who loves his chosen people and who will punish the wicked.

The first extreme quandary with Job is the idea that God can have an adversary. The literal reading is there is a force that can contend with God. Not only is this a force, but this is a powerful force, juxtaposed to God, whose challenge is so great that God demolishes the life of a pious man to prove a point to evil.

Even if the story is to be read allegorically there are still an abundance of severe problems. The best reading that I can get from the text, and I am by no means a bona fide biblical scholar more a naïve and budding philosopher, is that even when God throws evil on you, for no apparent reason, you still ought to be faithful. This may be a misreading of the text, but it is what I have discerned from Job. God can decide to bestow hardship upon is, whether we believe in him or not. Well why bother believing in him? The answer is because God is good and it will all pay off in the end. Well if God is good how could he ruin the life of a very faithful man who never harmed anyone, was praised for his piety, just to prove a point to Satan, the Devil, or the other force that is not God? This can lead to those to see that Job, most pious, still lost his family, and property. If Job is not good enough for God than who is? This tends me to say that if this story were true, which it is obviously a fictional story designed to relay a point, it would discourage people from Judaism.

It is still shocking the idea that God could have an adversary. If he is the ultimate creator, the one God, how can there be a being that he would have to contend with. This reminds me, for some reason, of the paradox of ‘can God create a rock so large even he cannot lift it?’. How can there possibly a force in the universe that God can contend with? This reminds me of polytheism, and the Book of Revelation, where Good wins out because it is more powerful than Evil. Job can be read as a cosmic power struggle, but Bloom may claim that is a misreading. Regardless, there is a force that can contend with God, and God is jeopardizing the life of an innocent believer just to prove a point to this force. How it affects humans is that God can treat us however poorly he desires, but we should still believe him. This is implying that God will play around with humans just because he can, and that we are so far below God that we are completely helpless. This idea of a God who can give and take arbitrarily is not the same god of J, E, D, the prophets, the Psalmists, the Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) and the rest of the Hebrew Bible. The fact that the assembly of the Canon was not an exact science it is very probable that the assembler(s) made some mistakes. Well, Job was one. Job would serve well as an interesting apocryphal test, but as part of the Canon it is highly inferior to the rest of the Canon and does not fit in with the same concept of God.

The Wonderful Wager of Pascal

While I have spent a serious amount of time of the past three years of my life contemplating religion, I believe that all my efforts to reach a decision are futile. Let me first add to my own ego by boasting (for my own self esteem) that I believe I am a fairly inept religious thinker, if I can be called one as an atheist/agnostic but I bet on the former, and it is not as if this is my first crack at the question of god. But I may admit futility in submission to a man by the name of Blaise Pascal. If this name is foreign to you I greatly suggest you reexamine calling yourself a cultured intellectual if you so do at the present time. I now promise this is the end of my ranting and boasting, if I have offended you, as I am not attempting to do here but I have been guilty of trying to do that in the past, I apologize but you either hate me or you love me and I am assuming almost all of you are thinking the former. But enough digression. Pascal formulated the famous “Pascal’s Wager.” This is the argument that we cannot known definitively if god exists. However, he believed that it is better to believe that he does exist than that he doesn’t exist. Wikipedia.org claims that this is a form of decision theory, something I admit I have hitherto not heard of, but it makes perfect sense nonetheless. It is important to note that Pascal was a Christian who at the age of 36 died intellectually at the passing of his father and committed the final eight years of his life Christianity and produced nothing in the realm of mathematics, science, or philosophy. Allow me to say that he was an immaculate genius in all three disciplines, and to think that I am worthy (do not debate me here) to ever write about Pascal is an honour.

Pascal did believe in the Christian God, and he himself may have been convinced but being as he was a genius logician he formulated the wager. As I have said in a previous post we formulate our own arguments for God, the creator, and we decide upon what constitutes as proof for God. Since we do not know what constitutes as proof, it is impossible to know if he exists or not. This is to ignore the fact that the creator may have instilled us the ability to speculate, but not to know and we need to make a Kierkegaardian “leap of faith” towards either theism or atheism.

So The Wager States makes for a better life to believe in God than to not to, and we cannot know either way about his existence. I fear that it is impossible to improve on this in terms of an argument for theism. Professor Peter Kreeft, whom I am a great admirer of (which is a great compliment from an atheist/agnostic who was born a Jew to pay to a Christian Apologist, but Professor Kreeft has returned one of my emails, but I have since emailed him twice and he has heretofore not yet returned them, and I hope greatly to meet the man for whom I have such respect). But how can an argument for theism be improved upon? I do not believe in god, as I have said an abundance of times hitherto, but it is imperative to attempt to see a better argument for theism. Any argument from a phenomenon and I can just say that I do not believe it proves god. One idea that I am working on is the idea that if I can see a being perform something that violates the laws of physics and nature, with the exception of the Second “Law” of Thermodynamics which I am still exceedingly skeptical of, that at least proves there is a force with unanticipated power. Another problem is that any argument for atheism may not be strong enough to hold up to The Wager. I cannot argue that atheism produces more favourable results than believing in God. When one looks at Nietzsche, Sartre, (some would argue me but I am BY NO MEANS close to the aforementioned two) as well as many other atheists they tend to be very defensive, angry, and nihilistic. This is an overgeneralization but atheists are more likely to be nihilists than theists. I contend this knowing that Calvinists who believe in predestination are prone to nihilism. So it cannot be said that atheism produces less favourable results than theism. If one takes a Pragmatist’s view then God exists, and atheism is a fallacy.

Even if one attempt to argue that atheism produces more favourable results in life than theism, it may be from a lack of commitment and a feeling of freedom, or from a belief that one is closer to the truth (this one I adhere to. to an extent). Yet does this security that one is closer to the truth make life better? I do not plan to answer this because that would entail defining life and better and make, something which I do not desire to do.

Pascal’s Wager still has one other hurdle to jump. It does accept that one is not searching for the truth, but just what works the best. This may be called accepting the cliché ‘ignorance is bliss.’ Yet it can be circumvented by saying that Pascal’s argument is not directly an argument for theism, but an argument for belief in God. Pascal does not care, or for the sake of this conversation is not concerned immediately with, if God exists, but if we ought to believe in him. Try as I might I cannot find a better argument for believing in God. I believe that a stronger argument can come from science, but hitherto science has not been able to prove his existence. I think the answer may lie in thermodynamics, the nature of infinity, or a branch of astrophysics, but that is another essay another time.

I do not know if I have said much in this piece but I at least wanted to address the idea of Pascal’s Wager and say that it might be the simplest, but most lucid argument for belief in God. And when I said I would not digress anymore it was obvious this would be a digression riddled piece. Regardless, does God exist? Ask me again later.

The Nature of Infinity

In the mathematical world, infinity is a concept that has been accepted as highly applicable and essential to mathematics. Yet it is not something at exists in the physical world, the finite world, the ‘real’ world. If we are to regard Eddington number 15 747 724 136 275 002 577 605 653 961 181 555 468 044 717 914 527 116 709 366 231 425 076 185 631 031 296 (this was copied from wikipedia.org). This is traditionally 10^80. The Eddington number is supposed to be the number of protons in the universe. In theory, there are not anymore quantities in the universe larger than this. So, do numbers stop at Eddington Number?

If we are to use the platonic world of forms, and regard the world of mathematics and the physical world as completely separate entities, then numbers are viewed as adjectives. There is nothing in the physical world that is three for example. Something may have threeness, or a group may consist of the elements of three, but the number three doesn’t exist as a physical entity. But what does this tell us about infinity (∞)?

The first thing to do is try to find a place in the physical world where infinity exists. This is not taken completely under the idea of Sir Roger Penrose that we simultaneously exist in three worlds: the physical, the mental, and the mathematical. If Penrose is correct, then infinity does not exist in the physical world, and only in the mathematical, and that infinity is something that acts in ways we cannot know in the physical world.

The only thing that I can see that is supposed to be infinite in the physical world is the idea of perpetual motion. Since perpetual motion is something that is not found in the physical world, infinity does not exist in their. If something cannot exist ad perpetuum or ad infinitum.

My point is that infinity is a concept so difficult to grasp with is it is something that doesn’t exist in the physical world. This brings my to my next point that is infinity a number or a concept. There is clearly something wrong with a number where x+1=x. If I am to understand correctly there are different sets, levels or numbers of inifinity in set theory. Well if x+1=x and y+1=y and y≠x then either y‹x or x‹y .

I have hitherto claimed that numbers exist independent of space and time. This is in accord with the Platonic view of the universe, but I claim not to be a Platonist but an Existentialist. But back to numbers. If numbers exist independent of space and time, then does ∞ exist in the same way also? I would assume so because, if Penrose is to be believed as I think I hope he ought to be in this case, then the mathematical world does not have to deal with space and time as the two other worlds do. Yet if numbers are ideas, or if at least infinity is an idea it ought to exist in the realm of the mind and the realm of mathematics. I am sure there is some ambiguity or paradox here but I care not to address it at the present time.

Finally, I would like to say that infinity is either an idea or a number or both, assuming all numbers are ideas. Regardless, infinity is something that will continue to make us stretch our brain for centuries to come, or at least as long as humans will exist for we heretofore have barely begun to understand the beauty in the idea of ∞.

On the Need for New Mathematical Characters

The great symbols of mathematics and science, π, φ, θ, ω, Δ to name a few, almost all come from the Ancient Greek Language. The problem is that many of these have multiple meanings. For example, α is not just the fine structure constant, but it is also the alpha particle, angle of attack in aerodynamics, as well as other denotations. Wouldn’t it be easier if alpha was just the fine structure constant? I believe it would for one who has studied many aspects of science, and been confused.

But where are we to get more characters and how can we change our old ones? I understand that changing them, for example making Euler’s gamma (γ) constant something different because there are gamma rays is unrealistic, but it would be nice. So, if were have heretofore used all the Greek letters at least thrice in many cases, what are we to do when new operations, constants, etc. become added to mathematics? The best answer is to have new symbols. But where are they to come from?

Hitherto Greek has almost always been used as the language of math and science. There are exceptions though. For example, the continuum hypothesis uses aleph (אּ) for Cantor believed it would teach him something about god. Yet where are we to turn from here? I believe that we should use characters from another ancient language. The first potential suitor is Sanskrit. This is because the Indians first developed the number system that that Arabs borrowed that has come down to us as the “Arabic numerals.” So, if the Greeks and the Indians were the foremost mathematicians of antiquity is it not most sensible to incorporate both into the current mathematical language. Yet the Sanskrit characters are quite difficult to form due to their intricacy. Some examples are as follows: ॡ, इ, ॠ and ओ. I can neither read nor pronounce these, and I am positive I cannot form them with any accuracy. Also, the language is foreign to an extreme majority of the population, and probably especially to mathematicians for they work with numbers and not with languages. Computers help lessen this barrier, but that does not by any means solve the problem.

So if Sanskrit is not a viable option, let us examine the Arabic language. It is a language whose speakers have contributed considerably to mathematics. Yet again, the language is exceedingly intricate, and the fact that it is a series of lines and the characters are not as distinct as in Greek, English or Sanskrit. So if Arabic will not work where ought we to turn?

Another ancient language that comes to mind is Hebrew. The Hebrew characters are only moderately intricate, they are written from right to left thought. However, they are closes in structure to the Latin characters and can be formed (I do not want to bring up the point that a significant percentage of mathematicians are Jewish, but it is an interesting fact. However, there are at most 20 millions Jews worldwide, and figure at most and extremely exaggerated figure, for say 35 million people are at least acquainted with the Hebrew characters. 35 millions out of 6.2 billion is not a considerable percentage.) Yet another problem arises. Hebrew as a read language uses the uppercase characters and the written uses a cursive script. Which characters would be used? This is more of a curse than a blessing, and would be confusing to those who use Hebrew (Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv are becoming budding intellectual centers). Worse of all, Hebrew has a religious connotation, and the Muslims may not allow Hebrew to be used as the language of mathematics due to their hatred of the Jews. Hebrew may be the best bet so far, but beyond a few more inclusions by mathematicians specifically, it is not likely to be a good candidate for the new language of mathematical characters.

So what does that leave us with? Chinese would be a good bet, but mathematicians deal with numbers and are not calligraphers. Farsi is in the same boat is Arabic, and Japanese is in the same as Chinese. One interest possibility is to use some of the super-ancient languages, for example Cuneiform, Biblical Hebrew, Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian, or any other language that was in existence at the dawn of history. Regardless, it would behoove the mathematical community to decide on some new characters to use to classify forthcoming mathematical and scientific constants, equations, and anything else used in the language of mathematics.