Eleven Year Old Genius Sets Out to Prove Existence of God

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I agree that two mutually exclusive, opposite beliefs about God would render at least one of them invalid. But that principle doesn't stand in the way of this...

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The "this" is an elephant, something physical, not something alleged. It has size, texture, makes sound, gives off smells, etc. Two blind people can quantify their experiences and then go back and repeat their experiences at will. They can compare results, begin to construct a physical model, conduct tests.

A god isn't like this, so the elephant analogy still fails.

But although it produces no knowledge about a god it is nevertheless still cute and clever, so it probably does illustrate how humans invent their gods.

 

[Copernicus]

What the analogy tells me is that theists have no idea whatsoever of what they are describing, since they are all blind and receiving conflicting impressions. If they are actually feeling different parts of the elephant and coming to wrong conclusions, then they are all submitting worthless reports on what it is they think they are feeling. So what is the point of worshiping the different body parts of that elephant or even the entire imagined elephant? Given that they are all blind, they may not even be feeling the same object in the dark. The cartoon just depicts it as the same object.

 

[bilby]

What the analogy tells me is that theists have no idea whatsoever of what they are describing, since they are all blind and receiving conflicting impressions. If they are actually feeling different parts of the elephant and coming to wrong conclusions, then they are all submitting worthless reports on what it is they think they are feeling. So what is the point of worshiping the different body parts of that elephant or even the entire imagined elephant? Given that they are all blind, they may not even be feeling the same object in the dark. The cartoon just depicts it as the same object.

Exactly. And having established that they cannot possibly know, they then have the brass face to claim that they do know that it is all one entity.

I hope they are wearing asbestos pants.

 

[Juma]

What the analogy tells me is that theists have no idea whatsoever of what they are describing, since they are all blind and receiving conflicting impressions. If they are actually feeling different parts of the elephant and coming to wrong conclusions, then they are all submitting worthless reports on what it is they think they are feeling. So what is the point of worshiping the different body parts of that elephant or even the entire imagined elephant? Given that they are all blind, they may not even be feeling the same object in the dark. The cartoon just depicts it as the same object.

Ha! I would like to see a ”counter cartoon” where the blind men are right...

 

[Copernicus]

What the analogy tells me is that theists have no idea whatsoever of what they are describing, since they are all blind and receiving conflicting impressions. If they are actually feeling different parts of the elephant and coming to wrong conclusions, then they are all submitting worthless reports on what it is they think they are feeling. So what is the point of worshiping the different body parts of that elephant or even the entire imagined elephant? Given that they are all blind, they may not even be feeling the same object in the dark. The cartoon just depicts it as the same object.

Ha! I would like to see a ”counter cartoon” where the blind men are right...

I believe that they would all be saying things like "trunk of an elephant", "tusk of an elephant", "hide of an elephant", "leg of an elephant", etc. I would only be funny if juxtaposed to the original cliche of confused blind men groping an elephant. The idea of the original is that there is something there that the men could all come to perceive as they progressed and compared notes, so the effort is not without a point. In a way, that is how science progresses--by converging on ever more correct models of reality. However, for the metaphor to be a relevant analogy with religion, one has to start with the position that there is something real and palpable that people are sensing.

I think that Lion is trying to make the familiar argument that theism is ubiquitous. There are few, if any communities of people, no matter how isolated from each other, that do not develop a religion based on deities of some sort. Humanity has been thoroughly god-infested throughout recorded history, and archaeology suggests that theism existed long before written records appeared. So that strikes many people as a kind of evidence that there is something real to be found, even if our perception of that reality is faulty or obscured. So scholars who take a more objective view of the phenomenon try to come up with plausible explanations of the ubiquity of theism across human cultures. There have been some explanations that serve as better alternatives to that of belief in miracle-working spirit beings. For example, Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie came up with the theory that humans tend to perceive reality in terms of what interests them most--threats, safety, sustenance, etc. Gods are nothing more than reflections of themselves that are imputed to objects and events in the world. He published his findings in Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion.

Theists find anthropomorphic explanations difficult to counter, so they quite often engage in strong denials that their version of God is truly anthropomorphic. The problem is that theism becomes less and less appealing as one's gods become dehumanized. One of the main advantages of religion is that believers can form an intimate personal relationship with God or gods. The less human-like a god is, the harder it is to get any benefit out of the belief system.

 

[Lion IRC]

What the analogy tells me is that theists have no idea whatsoever of what they are describing...

No idea?
They clearly have ideas - read the captions. They are feeling real sensations.

...since they are all blind and receiving conflicting impressions.

Listen to yourself. You're claiming an elephants ear is a conflicting body part with its trunk.
They are feeling parts of the SAME animal.

If they are actually feeling different parts of the elephant and coming to wrong conclusions, then they are all submitting worthless reports on what it is they think they are feeling.

Those reports aren't worthless to the person looking on. We can all see that they are each partly correct.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No, they're actually all completely wrong. That's the entire point of that image. If you base your conclusions off of incomplete information, you can come to incorrect conclusions. An elephant's leg isn't "partly" a tree. It's tail isn't "partly" a snake. They're not "partly" right. They're all wrong.

If you make a comparison of that to God and all the various religions tell us incorrect things about him due to incomplete data, you are saying that religions tell us nothing about God.

 

[Copernicus]

No, they're actually all completely wrong. That's the entire point of that image. If you base your conclusions off of incomplete information, you can come to incorrect conclusions. An elephant's leg isn't "partly" a tree. It's tail isn't "partly" a snake. They're not "partly" right. They're all wrong.

If you make a comparison of that to God and all the various religions tell us incorrect things about him due to incomplete data, you are saying that religions tell us nothing about God.

^^Exactly right. Lion doesn't get the point. Every description is wrong.

That said, the point of the metaphor is that all the blind men are acting independently of each other. Usually, this metaphor is used to promote teamwork in solving a problem. At least, that is how researchers and engineers used it in a business setting at the corporation where I used to work. It is not normally used to prove the existence of the metaphorical elephant.

Lion is trying to use the metaphor to promote the idea that they are all feeling different parts of the same object, which he assumes to be an actual supreme deity. The problem is that analogies are incapable of proving anything. The so-called "elephant" is a deity from his perspective but a common delusion from other perspectives. Where analogies are useful is in teaching new ideas and concepts. Lion's argument is nothing new here. The ubiquity of belief in deities is well known, but it has better explanations than that one or more deities drive the belief.

 

[Lion IRC]

OMG
You're right. I never noticed until now.
I feel so foolish. And you guys knew it all along. I am truly in the presence of genius.

I now see I ts just a bad drawing of an imaginary elephant. Its anatomically incorrect. The elephant has two eyes on the left side of its head leaving it blind on the other side, which probably accounts for why it accidentally stood on a snake. Or maybe it's completely blind (and stupid) and amazingly doesn't mind all those blind folks getting all over it - folks who, despite their blindness apparently HAVE seen idolatrous things like spears, trees, fans, ropes, and one has miraculously been able to manoeuvre a ladder into position and is no doubt trying to climb up to the top of God...err...I mean the wall.

Shame on me for thinking God was partly made of rope.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I wish him well. It would be nice if there really was an all loving God.

Okay, but what about the one that kills people out of jealousy and then later is "sorry" about it?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I wish him well. It would be nice if there really was an all loving God.

Okay, but what about the one that kills people out of jealousy and then later is "sorry" about it?

Well, one of the good things about being an all-forgiving god is that you can just go ahead and forgive yourself for that.

 

[ronburgundy]

He's nine, and his intellect doesn't mean he isn't still emotionally 9. Unless he has parents who abusively pressure him to be a theist, he will likely become a theist by age 18, not b/c he is a "genius" but just because of puberty and normal maturity.

 

[Underseer]

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpres...ants-to-prove-scientifically-that-god-exists/

Eleven-year-old William (Vasilios) Maillis is one of the youngest people ever to graduate from a public high school–at the ripe old age of nine–and will soon have his associate’s degree from St. Petersburg College in Florida. His long-term goal is to earn a doctorate in astrophysics and ultimately prove scientifically that God exists.

I for one, wish the young lad the best of luck. But really, this is gonna go one of two ways:

1. Future atheist

2. Tortured genius with damaged psyche consults Kirk Cameron for philosophical advice; ends up as curator of Ark museum in Kentucky; found dead of potassium overdose after eating 300 pounds of bananas in 15 hours.

He graduated from high school at 9 and only managed to get in to St Petersberg College?

Uhm. Wow.

What high school did he graduate from? Home schooling?

All joking aside, I just don't get the appeal of this story. No one in thousands of years has managed to provide an ounce of evidence for any god from any religion. Do they really think that's going to change any time soon? Then there's the whole appeal to authority thing.

They found a smart kid who believes god is real?

Big deal. I found a really smart guy who thinks that Nazis only count as Nazis if they are German and living in the 1930s-1940s.

https://twitter.com/peterboghossian/status/921890469440733184?lang=en

And one of the smartest human beings in history who believed in alchemy, including the nutty spiritual beliefs of alchemy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies

And an equally intelligent fellow who believed that ideas can exist independently of minds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism

Oh, and remember Newton? He also argued that light is made up of all the colors, therefore white people are inherently superior to the other races.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism

So much about that is stupid that I barely know where to begin.

 

[Copernicus]

The kid is young and curious as to how to justify his belief in a deity to skeptics. Give him time. He may be joining us here one day soon. Who knows? A lot of us who were raised as believers ended up rejecting religion during the teen years.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The kid is young and curious as to how to justify his belief in a deity to skeptics. Give him time. He may be joining us here one day soon. Who knows? A lot of us who were raised as believers ended up rejecting religion during the teen years.

But then we all went back to being believers after this kid presented his solid evidentiary support for the existence of God.

 

[barbos]

The kid is young and curious as to how to justify his belief in a deity to skeptics. Give him time. He may be joining us here one day soon. Who knows? A lot of us who were raised as believers ended up rejecting religion during the teen years.

What strikes me in him and other wundekids is a total lack of meta-cognitive skills. I vaguely remember myself at his age. I was not that "knowledgeable" as him but I was sure as hell able to smell a rat. These winderkids are incredible in their ability to take anything and put it in their brain, and anything includes stuff which patently makes no sense. I suspect lots of these kids have no actual abilities or their own motivation except desire to please their overzealous parents.

 

[Underseer]

The kid is young and curious as to how to justify his belief in a deity to skeptics. Give him time. He may be joining us here one day soon. Who knows? A lot of us who were raised as believers ended up rejecting religion during the teen years.

Do we still have the "deconversion story" thread around in an archive?

I read the whole thing and one thing that stuck out to me is that a lot of people are deconverted by serious study of Christian apologetics. In trying to find out whether or not their beliefs are true, they find out that the evidence for is incredibly weak and the arguments against are strong.

Only the most indoctrinated can look at the arguments and evidence and conclude that religion is true, but they aren't going to be able to offer any good arguments or evidence for their position anymore than any human being in all of recorded human history.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Hey, as long as he’s not sitting around all day playing Minecraft, he’s better than most 11 year olds. I wish him well.

It would be awkward if he ends up proving the existence of Ganesha, though, because I would not feel comfortable worshipping someone with an elephsnt’s year, even if that’s justified by the scientific data.

That does seem to be a problem, trying to prove the right god exists, without accidentaly proving they all do...

 

[Elixir]

The kid is young and curious as to how to justify his belief in a deity to skeptics. Give him time. He may be joining us here one day soon. Who knows? A lot of us who were raised as believers ended up rejecting religion during the teen years.

But then we all went back to being believers after this kid presented his solid evidentiary support for the existence of God.

I suspect it will looks something like this:



Hey - I'm convinced!

 

[Keith&Co.]

Well, i suspect it'll look like other people using him for argument from respect for IQ:

"This kid believed in God at 11, and he's a fucking genius! So you would have to be either much, much smarter than him, or a drooling moron, to question him.
Whats yer IQ? "