Friday, February 12, 2016

Hate Mail - Nah, Nah, Na, Nah, Nah They Found Gravity Waves

Why is that supposed to upset me?    

Now, tell me exactly what they discovered, how they discovered it and what it means.    Hurry up, I don't have the half-life of Bismuth-209 to wait for your explanation.  That last one, by the way, I doubt that anyone knows yet, too soon to predict.  What it means. 

Atheists seem to only conceive of God as a god of the gaps, like some particularly dim fundamentalists do.  That's the god they don't believe in.   Lots of us don't believe in that god, we believe in the One who made everything, including gravity waves and everything else as described and imagined by human beings and our science.  

Update:  I strongly suspect that the number of people whose belief in God hinged on the absence of verification of gravity waves has an absolutely certain measure of ZERO.   Oddly enough, I don't recall reading of a single person who was converted to atheism by the verification of the Higgs boson.  

3 comments:

  1. I'm reminded of the trip I made to Seattle with a colleague many moons ago. I was a young pup, but had been teaching for a long time, and he was an old IBMer who was sent to observe me as part of his training. Despite the age and experience difference, we had a lovely time socializing after class, including a visit to the aquarium.

    It was during a special jelly fish exhibit. We stared for a long time at this big cylindrical tank at the entrance, entranced by the floating forms. He said, "when I see things like this, I can't help but believe in God." I said, "when I see beautiful things like this, I can't help but believe in an amazing universe that doesn't require God, but who the fuck cares because they're damned cool." We nodded acceptance to each other and wandered the rest of the facility, then had a great dinner at an Irish pub.

    The Christian Scientist even shared his first beer in 30 years with me.

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    1. I can help believing in God. But as I do (whatever "believe" actually means in this context, said the dry philosopher), it makes the beautiful things more beautiful.

      And more entitled to be beautiful. God must consider them beautiful, and who am I to tread on that beauty?

      Or something. Good story. It just reminded me that my faith in God is not dependent upon certain conditions of the world, but that conditions of the world are changed for me because of my belief in God.

      Or, as I said, something.

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