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| The faith of mathematicians | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 22 2013, 10:13 AM (153 Views) | |
| Nova | Apr 22 2013, 10:13 AM Post #1 |
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The faith of mathematicians After reading A Certain Ambiguity, a fictional math related story, the thought was sparked as to whether or not most professional mathematicians have or ought to have a deep religious faith. After some thought, I reached the judgment that whether or not the majority of professional mathematicians are religiously faithful, they ought to be. In A Certain Ambiguity Judge Taylor of New Jersey represented one of faith. He was considering prosecuting India native Vijay for blasphemy in the early 1900s. Meanwhile Vijay represented a non-believer, of course. Both sides weathered through their respective struggles and debated the validity of their respective sets of axioms. In the end, I agreed with Judge Taylor that there cannot be a contradiction between mathematics and faith. I have always been curious as to what the religious views of mathematicians are. I am inclined to believe that most mathematicians are not religious and in many cases went from being raised religious to go on to not uphold those beliefs later. A few good examples of this would be Joseph Louis Lagrange who was raised Roman Catholic but later turned agnostic and Stephen Hawking who is known to be agnostic as well. I noticed that many great mathematicians were indeed religious in their day, although it would not surprise me if they had their fair share of scuffles with religious leaders and often political leaders when the two were intertwined. Because of the political systems in past centuries, one might suspect that many religious mathematicians were religious only to avoid any repercussions from being not. There are many famous mathematicians that were known as Christians like Judge Taylor. Some examples are Sir Isacc Newton who wrote significantly about Christianity, and Blaise Pascal who was Roman Catholic. Srinivasa Ramanujan, a famous Indian mathematician, was known to be a highly religious Hindu and Albert Einstein was a prime example of a Jewish mathematician. Others, like Carl Friedrich Gauss were deeply spiritual. I hold the position that not only can religion and mathematics coexist, but they must coexist. When I started my collegiate career at Xavier University I was a chemistry major, which involves a high degree of mathematics, but I eventually switched to Computer Science, which too involves a significant amount of math. In this time I also remained a practicing Catholic and was perfectly comfortable doing it. I actually believe that science and mathematics (which can be called the language of science) can help in the understanding of religion. The Catholic Church has commented on the relationship between science (and thus math) and religion. I thought it would be interesting to research what one of the world’s most influential religious leaders would have to say about this. Then Pope Benedict XVI addressed this issue in a September 2006 lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany. He remarked, “John began his Gospel with the words: “In the beginning there was the logos”… Logos means both reason and word…the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of faith itself…”(Benedict XVI). The Pope is stating that reason and faith belong together. In the same lecture, Benedict XVI discusses the emergence of the shift to eliminate reason from theology. He calls this process dehellenization, and does so because of the interconnectedness of the Catholic Church with Greek culture where the “reason” references the Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle among other connections to Greek culture. The separation of reason and theology is thus called dehellenization. Benedict XVI states that one of the first dehellenizing moves was done by Emmanuel Kant who said that he would have to, “…set thinking aside in order to make room for faith…”(Benedict XVI) although he acknowledges that there may not have been an intention of drumming up this dehellenizing process. The Pope makes his friendliness with mathematics decidedly clear when he states, “…only the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements can be considered scientific” (Benedict XVI). In light of this, I reached the conclusion that the idea that there is an incompatibility between math/science and religion is ill founded. If as a Catholic I am to believe that God created the universe, I must also believe that the laws of the universe, defined as we know them by mathematics, must also be the product of God’s creation. Thus, mathematics and religion must be compatible. Works Cited Benedict, XVI. "Meeting with the Representatives of Science at the University of Regensburg."Meeting with the Representatives of Science at the Universityof Regensburg. N.p., Sept. 2006. Web. 15 Apr. 2013. Edited by Nova, Apr 22 2013, 10:20 AM.
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| surfer | Apr 22 2013, 01:39 PM Post #2 |
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5000+ posts
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Good write up. Very interesting take. I agree with your position by the way. |
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