Nobody plus nothing equals everything

[Knowed Out]

Mocking non-believers for failing to grasp the logic behind the existence of God, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) cited an exchange with the late Texas entertainer Bob Murphey to disprove atheism during a prayer rally in Washington, D.C. Wednesday.

“Bob Murphey used to say, ‘You know, I feel so bad for atheists, I do,'” Gohmert recalled at "Celebrate America,” a three-week-long revival event. “‘Think about it, no matter how smart they think they are, an atheist has to admit that he believes the equation: nobody plus nothing equals everything.’”

"How embarrassing for an intellectual to have to say 'Yeah, I believe that,'" Gohmert said, citing Murphey. "Nobody plus nothing equals everything."

OK this guy deserves large amounts of mocking and consternation. This is an example of how Morons With Charisma somehow manage to get elected to office despite being completely ignorant of principles that govern our lives, IE science. And in this case, math.

Maybe at some point in their lives, Gohmert or Murphey came across the theory of relativity, E = m c squared, and figured out that if one of those values is zero, then so is the other value. Therefore, using the scientists' own most fundamental equation against them, scientists think nobody plus nothing equals everything. In your face, scientists.

I doubt that ever happened. That would imply actual thinking on their part. It's entirely possible they can understand the first step in a long series of scientific postulation, but that would indicate that they know what the terms mean and can actually conceive of a scenario of multiplying by zero. Which is sadder, to be completely ignorant, or to be just knowledgeable enough to grasp surface meanings of a significant concept and remain ignorant of everything else?

Morons With Charisma ironically think when atheists deny the existence of God, they put faith before reason. They think atheists make outlandish and absurd claims such as:

• moldy peanut butter proves evolution.
• the creation of the universe is like throwing a disassembled pocket watch into a washing machine and coming back to find it fully reassembled.
• fish developed legs and walked out of the ocean.

Just think, we depend on people like Gohmert to guide our educational system.

[msmith537]

If it's any consolation, we generally don't really ask charismatic morons to do anything particularly important like design and build the cars and aircraft you ride in, build software you use, perform surgery, and stuff like that. We mostly put them in useless middle-management positions or political roles where they can endlessly bicker and argue about nothing with each other.

Have you ever wondered why there is so much political gridlock or major corporations seem to spend so much time in useless meetings not getting anything done? Imagine what would happen if we let those idiots actually do something!

[Crotalus]

I don't think the charismatic moron is mocking E = MC2, he's just mocking the idea that everything sprang from nothing without someone (God) making that happen.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Crotalus

I don't think the charismatic moron is mocking E = MC2, he's just mocking the idea that everything sprang from nothing without someone (God) making that happen.

Then isn't this an argument against the existence of God?

[Doctor Jackson]

:: planting tongue firml in cheek::
Not very eloquent, and not even a real representation of the "formula" for creation. I think he meant that, in order for the big bang theory to be correct there had to be:

1. Energy to create a explosion (something #1)
2. Mass for the energy to act upon (something #2)
3. A cause for the action/reaction (something #3 or someone #1)

His formula ignores either 1 or 2 (it accounts for only one null) and assumes a sentient for #3. Sloppy math work, indeed! His "formula" should be EM⁰ = 0. If either energy or mass equals zero, then cause is relevant only if one assumes a circumstance that could create both. Assumptions don't belong in formulas, but should be noted before presenting.
::removing tongue from cheek::

[Dung Beetle]

Originally Posted by Knowed Out

“Bob Murphey used to say, ‘You know, I feel so bad for atheists, I do,'” Gohmert recalled at "Celebrate America,” a three-week-long revival event. “‘Think about it, no matter how smart they think they are, an atheist has to admit that he believes the equation: nobody plus nothing equals everything.’”

Well bless his heart.

[Crotalus]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Then isn't this an argument against the existence of God?

I don't think so. I think he's saying that poor atheists believe that nobody plus nothing equals everything, while wise and fortunate Christians believe someone(God) plus nothing equals everything. It's a weak argument for the existence of God the way I read it.

[Ludovic]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Then isn't this an argument against the existence of God?

Originally Posted by Crotalus

I don't think so. I think he's saying that poor atheists believe that nobody plus nothing equals everything, while wise and fortunate Christians believe someone(God) plus nothing equals everything. It's a weak argument for the existence of God the way I read it.

But of course you can then say that theists believe that Nothing + Nobody = God.

[Crotalus]

Originally Posted by Ludovic

But of course you can then say that theists believe that Nothing + Nobody = God.

I think we can state with algebraic confidence that whoever believes that God + nothing = everything must believe that everything - nothing = God, which means that everything = God, which is pantheism.

This is not going to sit well with Louie Gohmert.

[LinusK]

Murphy's claim is just as ridiculous: nothing + magic = everything.

If you want to say "hey there's a bunch of stuff we don't understand, therefore everything we don't understand must be God," you can say that. But it's still stupid.

Plus then you still have to figure out which God did it. Was it Zeus? Jesus? Allah? Buddha?

Presumably Murphy thinks the one who told Noah to put the animals in the ark did it.

But I'm pretty sure it was Zeus.

[Czarcasm]

Originally Posted by LinusK

Murphy's claim is just as ridiculous: nothing + magic = everything.

If you want to say "hey there's a bunch of stuff we don't understand, therefore everything we don't understand must be God," you can say that. But it's still stupid.

Plus then you still have to figure out which God did it. Was it Zeus? Jesus? Allah? Buddha?

Presumably Murphy thinks the one who told Noah to put the animals in the ark did it.

But I'm pretty sure it was Zeus.

"Build a humongous boat, fill it full of wild animals and go for a cruise" sounds more like Loki to me.

[LinusK]

Originally Posted by Czarcasm

"Build a humongous boat, fill it full of wild animals and go for a cruise" sounds more like Loki to me.

I think you just founded a new religion.

Loki pretending to be Yahwey would explain a lot of things...

[Czarcasm]

Originally Posted by LinusK

I think you just founded a new religion.

Loki pretending to be Yahwey would explain a lot of things...

"Don't believe in The Word-Be in on The Joke!"

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Crotalus

I don't think so. I think he's saying that poor atheists believe that nobody plus nothing equals everything, while wise and fortunate Christians believe someone(God) plus nothing equals everything. It's a weak argument for the existence of God the way I read it.

No, the argument is based on the premise that nothing can exist unless something created it. Therefore, the universe couldn't exist unless something created it and that something is God.

Leaving aside the weakness in that conclusion, let's look at just the premise. What created God? If nothing created God then, by the premise of the argument, God can't exist. (And if you argue that something created God you're throwing out everything Christians believe while merely moving the rebuttal back a step to the issue of what created the God creator.)

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by LinusK

Loki pretending to be Yahwey would explain a lot of things...

Turns out Captain America was wrong after all.

[Thudlow Boink]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

No, the argument is based on the premise that nothing can exist unless something created it. Therefore, the universe couldn't exist unless something created it and that something is God.

Leaving aside the weakness in that conclusion, let's look at just the premise. What created God? If nothing created God then, by the premise of the argument, God can't exist. (And if you argue that something created God you're throwing out everything Christians believe while merely moving the rebuttal back a step to the issue of what created the God creator.)

That's why any serious version of the Cosmological Argument begins with a version of the premise like "Every finite and contingent being has a cause" or "Whatever begins to exist has a cause."

[WordMan]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

No, the argument is based on the premise that nothing can exist unless something created it. Therefore, the universe couldn't exist unless something created it and that something is God.

Which is exactly what Crotalus said, but termed in the same format as the congressman.

Why does everybody have to be so soap-boxy in threads like this?

The congressman puts me off much more for his smug tone than his choice to believe. Believers believe - and humble, open ones are thoughtful to talk with.

Smug sucks from all angles in discussions like this.

[74westy]

Originally Posted by doctor jackson

his "formula" should be EM⁰ = 0.

EM⁰ = 1. (assuming E != 0, M != 0)

[Sherrerd]

Originally Posted by Knowed Out

Which is sadder, to be completely ignorant, or to be just knowledgeable enough to grasp surface meanings of a significant concept and remain ignorant of everything else?

To take your rhetorical question seriously: the second condition is the sadder of the two. The first has a certain ethical innocence; the second is riddled with the corruption of complacent self-satisfaction.

The whole point of Gohmert's remarks was to seem clever (by using the surface meaning of a significant concept, as you put it), and by so doing, let his audience feel clever-by-association. The goal: that warm glow of Righteous Superiority.

The same sort of thing happens when people "prove" the "unnatural" nature of homosexuality by saying 'it's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve'---natural law being asserted to operate, apparently, by means of rhyme. Or in another example, 'guns don't kill people; people kill people' seems convincing because it seems cleverly symmetrical. Short, sweet, and therefore valid...or so speakers appear to believe.

Notice that those voicing a pithy maxim seem to take great pride in doing so; they may sincerely think that speaking them is proof of righteous alignment with Eternal Truths. If you can say it in a one-liner, then it must be true!

[Senegoid]

Hah! This bit o' Republican nonsense, which logically belongs in our world-famous Stupid Republican Idea Of The Day thread, rates an entire thread unto itself!

This is right up there with Kentucky state senator Brandon Smith (R), who seems to be arguing (let's see if I can put his argument into some logical order, as best I can understand what I think he's trying to say):

• Ambient temperature on Mars is the same as on Earth. [Subsequently clarified to say something less idiotic, but still idiotic; see linked article.]
• This is undisputed in academia.
• There are no coal mines (or coal-powered anything?) on Mars.
• Therefore, the temperature on Mars cannot be attributed to human activity (specifically, burning coal).
• Therefore, the temperature on Earth cannot be attributed to human activity (specifically, burning coal).
• Therefore, there is no such problem as Anthropogenic Global Warming on Earth.
• Therefore, there is no need for environmental regulations about that.
• Therefore, the EPA can go suck coal on Mars or something.

At a hearing to discuss how the state could deal with the Environmental Protection Agency’s new proposed greenhouse gas regulations for coal plants, Majority Whip Brandon Smith (R-Hazard) argued that carbon emissions from coal plants can’t be causing climate change because Mars is also experiencing a global temperature rise — and there are no coal plants emitting carbon on Mars.

“I think that in academia, we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that,” Smith said. “Yet there are no coal mines on Mars, there’s no factories on Mars that I’m aware of. So I think what we’re looking at is something much greater than what we’re going to do.”

[msmith537]

I think it's actually nobody minus nothing over the square root of nowhere.

[Count Blucher]

Originally Posted by Czarcasm

"Build a humongous boat, fill it full of wild animals and go for a cruise" sounds more like Loki to me.

...or Jiminy Cricket?

-d&r-

[DingoelGringo]

Originally Posted by Crotalus

I don't think the charismatic moron is mocking E = MC2, he's just mocking the idea that everything sprang from nothing without someone (God) making that happen.

That is really a quite ignorant assumption. If the existence f humanity proves the existence of God then who made God? It would be the next step in the logic chain.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Thudlow Boink

That's why any serious version of the Cosmological Argument begins with a version of the premise like "Every finite and contingent being has a cause" or "Whatever begins to exist has a cause."

Looks like begging the question to me.

[Thudlow Boink]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Looks like begging the question to me.

I can see why you might say that. But

(1) Begging the question is not a fallacy in the sense that an argument based on it is invalid.* The argument is still valid; it's just that the conclusion is contained within the premise(s). But if you find that premise to be true, or at least plausible (and I think at least some people do), you still have to accept the conclusion as true, or plausible.

(2) The versions of the premise that I quoted are weaker assumptions than the premise in "your" form of the argument. I don't see anything inherently objectionable in weakening a premise in order to make an argument work. For example, if you tried to prove a statement about all real numbers, only to hit a contradiction based on division by zero, you might still be able to salvage the proof by reframing the statement as being about all nonzero real numbers.


That's my own reply. After coming up with it, I did a bit of googling to see whether anyone else had argued for or against your contention that this was question-begging.

One site I found was this. First of all, its author rubbed me the wrong way by indulging in this bit of chronological chauvinism:

The old cosmological argument claimed that since everything has a cause, there must be a first cause, an "unmoved first mover." Today no theistic philosophers defend that primitive line because if everything needs a cause, so does God.

—as though all earlier theistic philosophers were too dumb to notice such an obvious objection to the "old cosmological argument."

But my main objection is to his claim in the section "Does Kalam Beg the Question?" that the cosmological argument assumes that NBE (the set of things that do not have a beginning) is non-empty. I think he's flat-out wrong about that: I don't see how any such assumption is necessary, going in, in order to make the argument work.

Furthermore, theology has long considered God to be eternal, so the idea of God not having a beginning is not just something made up to prop up an otherwise faulty argument.

Another site I found, however, may be onto something. This writer (if I understand him correctly) identifies the question-begging in the assumption of causality. When we state that everything (or everything that has a beginning, or however we want to qualify it) has a cause, we're saying so based on our own experience of how the world works. But all our experience is with an ongoing universe, and it may not be a fair assumption to extend it to the beginning of the very universe itself. So at that point, I'm inclined to agree that there is some question-begging involved in the argument.


*(If this point needs further explanation, see here, the first bullet point in the "Exposure" section.)

[WordMan]

Originally Posted by msmith537

I think it's actually nobody minus nothing over the square root of nowhere.

He's a real Nowhere Man, sitting in his Nowhere Land, making all his Nowhere Plans for Nobody...

Carry on.

Thudlow - isn't that a lot of...thinking for a thread that is really about a smug twit making a smug twitticism?

If folks like the topic of Why is there Something rather than Nothing? There is a great exploration of the religious, scientific and philosophical approaches to answering that question in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-World.../dp/0871403595

[Senegoid]

Originally Posted by WordMan

If folks like the topic of Why is there Something rather than Nothing? There is a great exploration of the religious, scientific and philosophical approaches to answering that question in this book: < . . . >

For Yet Another view on the question "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?", see:
Smullyan, Raymond. What Is The Name Of This Book? (PDF. Full text.) Starting on page 135, chapter entitled "Part Three: Weird Tales: The Island of Baal". A philosopher makes it his life's work to find the answer to this question, and in his adventures, must solve a litany of Truth-Teller / Liar logic questions!

Legend has it that Leibniz came up with this answer: There are infinitely many ways that Something could exist, but only one way that Nothing could exist. Therefore, the probability is certainty that Something will exist in one or another of its possible forms.

[Knowed Out]

Originally Posted by Sherrerd

Notice that those voicing a pithy maxim seem to take great pride in doing so; they may sincerely think that speaking them is proof of righteous alignment with Eternal Truths. If you can say it in a one-liner, then it must be true!

With good reason... because it works. Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, to paraphrase HL Mencken.

Another quote from Mencken, appropriate for this thread: "When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand."

[Ethilrist]

I'd think that "everything plus nobody = everything" is something intellectual atheists could get behind.

[dba Fred]

While nothin’ from nothin' leaves nothin' aka the Billy Preston Law.

[simster]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Turns out Captain America was wrong after all.

hey - I got that.

[Sherrerd]

Originally Posted by Knowed Out

With good reason... because it works. Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, to paraphrase HL Mencken.
Another quote from Mencken, appropriate for this thread: "When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand."

If only ol' Menck's cynicism weren't so often validated by real-world events.

It's a perennial problem of democracy. Of course the problem can be somewhat ameliorated by thorough and comprehensive public education. That the American right is busily trying to eliminate public education might be considered to be evidence of conspiracy--but it's probably simply greed (for the transfer of public funds into private pockets; which is another thread entirely).