The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster - Bobby Henderson [45]
What follows are proofs that have been submitted to the Enlightenment Institute’s publishing arm, the Science Creative Quarterly, the first science publication to take notice of the obvious legitimacy of FSM. They are the rare and hard-won fruits of some of the greatest thinkers at work in the world today.
The Case for the Church of the Immaculate Induction
Kelly Black
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS
UNION COLLEGE, SCHENECTADY, NY
ABSTRACT
Recent political efforts to broaden the scope of science education and bring science into the mainstream have generated a great deal of controversy. One of the things that has been sorely missing is the relationship between mathematics and religion. Here we attempt to inject a greater mathematical essence into religion as well as explore one immediate implication, the immaculate induction hypothesis.
INTRODUCTION We focus on the injection of a greater mathematical sensibility within the religious community and examine the resulting implications. In doing so we agree that Intelligent Design is a valid viewpoint, but ask what this implies. We find that this implies a countable sequence of all-powerful and all-knowing entities going back through all time. The basic argument is that the complexity of the known universe implies the existence of a creator. The union of the creator and creation is a set that is more complex than just the universe and thus implies a creator of the larger set. An induction hypothesis follows readily from this approach.
The motivation for this work comes from recent efforts to inject the ideas of Intelligent Design into the science curriculum, which has generated enormous attention in the mainstream media. Unfortunately, both sides accuse the other of being close-minded. In this game of tug of war both sides must be recalcitrant in order for the game to continue.
The current situation comes as little surprise to those of us in the mathematics community. We have been well aware of the proclivities of both sides. We have been long-time observers of both sides and have noted these tendencies for many millennia. The mathematics community itself is also composed of people who share most of the traits of both sides—dogmatic, religious fervor combined with supreme arrogance— and we watch this terrible conflict with an awful understanding of the pain felt on both sides.
It is for this very reason that the mathematics community can no longer sit on the sideline. In particular we address the need for a greater mathematical ethic within the religious community through a preliminary investigation of Intelligent Design. This may seem one-sided, but the close relationship that has developed between the mathematics and science communities (with the exceptions of chemistry, biology, geology, and psychology) is already well documented and subject to intense scrutiny.
THE GENESIS STORY
There has always been some tension between science and religion. Ironically, this tension has been seemingly focused on minor issues. The trial over Galileo’s assertion that the earth revolves around the sun relies on a single, ambiguous statement within the Old Testament. Men of great intellect and passion clashed over a trivial statement that has since been all but forgotten.
We now find ourselves with a similar clash. We are focused on the story of our origin. Again the clash centers on a relatively minor aspect of a broad tale. This time it is the Genesis story that is at the center of the conflict. One might think that the Genesis story is really about the gift given to us by the creator. This is the gift of creation but more importantly the gift of free will. We were given creation