Ponderable Aspects of God

While in a classroom with other students, I made a statement the ensuing argument prevented me from setting straight. The 40% tolerance for accuracy I quoted for carbon dating tests (1/6/76) was arrived at as follows: I have read literary arguments presented in several articles and books by various authors, stating tolerances as varied as anyone could imagine, anywhere from 10 to 40%, depending on the writer. (I am also under the impression that newer techniques have been devised with something like +/- 15% accuracy, depending on materials and circumstances). Paying attention to publishing dates, and making an effort to discern an author’s viewpoint, were items I had not yet learned to regard as important.

Now: to reject a scientific concept—one approved by actual scientists—without learning as much as one can about it and trying it out however one can, seems to me dishonest. So, just because it seems questionable to certain people (as all concepts seem questionable to somebody, really), and because no testable, better alternative has ever been announced, I felt the most honest approach would be to accept the loosest tolerance as valid for my own considerations, since it would include the others. I would, by effect, understand the tightest tolerance as “pro”, the loosest as “against”, and the middle as “cautiously noncommittal”.

Choosing the most honest approach should, arguably, yield results closest to trustworthy, which is what we should desire. So, is a 40% tolerance too loose to be useful? The honest approach requires us to try it out instead of poo-pooing it with no kind of test. What, after all, do we have to fear? Is the possibility that we might learn something that much of a threat? Why be dishonest?

(Ref: www.bradshawfoundation.com/herto_skulls.php ) If the oldest human skull has been aged at 160thousand years, how far wrong can that be​? Pondering it, I used the loosest tolerance to figure a range of 96 to 224thousand years. If science ages the Earth at 4.5 million years and the universe at 12-13billion years, but my religion tells me the whole shebang was created 3,400 years ago, how do I resolve that? Even if I decide that Eve and Adam (or, Lilith and Adam) stayed clear of the Tree of Knowledge for 13billion years (or, 5.2billion at minimum) so they could live that long, from where can anyone concoct even a hint of substantiation?

My teacher makes a habit of demanding proof that what we say in class is true. This puts the would-be speaker in a dilemma if “proof” requires equipment or materials beyond his means, or he talked about his subjective concerns. The subjective, being about the contents of our own minds, cannot be made available as objective “proof” beyond the fact that he was talking about it. That gives us firsthand information that always requires verification; it must never be accepted as proof.

Proof is “that which convinces”. Taken to their roots, no concepts are ultimately provable. They can only be validated with evidence or inferred. Because science makes no claims beyond the measurable and ponderable (scientists and publicists are not “science”—beware your sources!), science makes no determinations about abstract ideals or beliefs.

While those schools of thought we refer to as “religious” do deal with with the imponderable and immeasurable, they also claim divine right to determine the concrete nature of existence. To claim divine right, they are saying, “God has spoken and determined this: [‘What a god named God is said to have told someone.’] Being immaterial, God has no demonstrable, ponderable existence. Still, can we not ask, “What of the soul that is the self within us? Is that also immaterial? We know it exists. Everybody recognizes it within themselves and others as being their own unique selves among others much the same.” I have arrived at a conclusion that a soul separate from the self obfuscates the issue and fails to support all claims on life beyond the grave. Beyond that, I find it easy to agree with the many depictions in the Bible of the spirit as “the breath of life.”

For whatever it’s worth, science finds its own immaterial god in mathematics. Among the many differences that make science’s the superior god are:

• Universal direct interpretation between cultures.

• A powerful god all can follow with no need for threats.

• Built-in methods of verification.

• Easy to understand basics eliminates need for dangerous priests.

• Does not require missionaries to make its value obvious.

• Requires no preachers to keep the flocks in line.

• Honored by all levels of society.

Yet, by any believable standards for existence, numbers, the stuff of mathematics, being immaterial, do not exist. From my own viewpoint, considering everything else I have done, I do not think I am being ridiculous. It seems plain that, since all of humanity harbors their own beliefs about gods while maintaining reasonable consistency in mathematics, that all of us are polytheists, blasphemers, or heretics. The important difference between gods and numbers is that which gives numbers their power and defines the weakness of gods, that disparity in calculating numbers can be resolved by finding a mistake, whereas no gods have ever been found to direct uniform arrival at a resolution. God-speak stays open to interpretation and tampering, spawns apologia, which spawns new cults, which become the basis for new cultures and subcultures. That shows why god-speak became divisive and weakening (divide to conquer) while mathematics enables stability and solidarity (unify and activate to strengthen).

Written entirely with OPEN OFFICE.

Please help me. I have been struggling more than a month to port Word 2013 onto my new HP computer. Buying that has proved to be a massive mistake, as you all have been fighting me away from the minute I plugged it in, and made yourselves impossible for me to deal with. I have had s light stroke, Dr Blazer thinks. That is why I cannot type fast enough to answer all the questions you posed before your page timed out, and why I resorted to the shortened  version that you decided was not enough.

Today, I feel helpless as none of the new passwords allow me past your barriers. The paranoia that drives you to perform all sorts of horrors in the guise of offering protection must be contagious. In lieu of your advance of anything to salvage my former respect for Microsoft, I have downloaded a free copy of Open Office, which can read and write Word files in immaculate fashion, https://www.openoffice.org/ . Mistreatment of your customers should only serve to increase their revenues.

I hope I misread your intentions, and that you do experience empathy so that I will hear from you in a day or two. If not, I will post this on Facebook so you can read it sooner or later.

On 9/14/2015 5:25 PM, Microsoft account team wrote:

Microsoft account

Security info was replaced

Good news! The waiting period you started 30 days ago is over, and your old security info has been replaced with XXXXXXX. No further action is required.

If you’d like to review the security info for xxxxxxxxx, CLICK HERE.

Thanks,

The Microsoft account team

I have had little, if any, trouble dealing with any other vendors whose products populate this new system. Since my only interest was to enable my copy of Word, for which I paid full price and waited a month for the disc to arrive, I felt immense glee at being able to convince you enough that I am me to let me log on to my account. Imagine my chagrin when you refused with the excuse that my Word is associated with a different email. Really? Things I buy get associated with email? What happened to my name?

I took a wild guess and submitted the Juno link I had abandoned months ago, after which you attempted to repeat the very same routine again. You know?— the one where you ask a lot of questions, and the page times out because I can’t type fast enough to get them all answered—the one that earned me that thirty days of punishment for failing to live up to your expectations. I have survived a series of strokes. I have already been punished.

I have decided it is possible your vulnerable position makes you subject to paranoia, but your actions tell me to follow the money. I am not cave to purchase a second copy of Word, however giant your company. I wrote, about a month and a half ago, to the return address on the envelope in which the Word disc arrived. I have never heard back. That puts another false face on your caring attitude.

Maybe you’ll wonder why I chose to post this here. The answer is that you have blocked every normal channel of contact. You don’t respond to direct mail. You initiated this action against me with no apparent way to defend against it. While this may accomplish nothing for myself, I hope it will serve as a warning for others. Customers are not property just because you call us “yours”.

Written entirely with OPEN OFFICE.