I'd like to create a small section that outlines the argument that mathematical undecidability provides a logical basis for religious faith. The argument is simply that we can prove rigorously that there exist true statements that have no logical proof. Therefore the atheistic tendency to demand evidence for religious matters, like the existence of god, is not backed up by formal logic: if we know that there are true things that cannot be proven, then it is logical to sometimes have faith without proof.
What do you think? I don't know if anyone reads this page, but I wanted to throw this out there before making the edit. Aroth 18:05, 14 September 2009 (EDT)
- Sounds reasonable to me. You could also link to the page Kurt Godel, to which I just added a brief discussion of Godel's ontological argument. Godel believed not that undecidability provides a logical basis for religious faith, but that a logical argument for faith may be explicitly constructed along the lines of Anselm's ontological argument. --MarkGall 20:33, 14 September 2009 (EDT)
- Great. I added a short section and linked to Godel's page. Aroth 20:50, 14 September 2009 (EDT)
- Looks great! I do wonder about why Zeno's paradox is listed as undecidable... I think the matter of infinite series is now fairly well understood. I'd be willing to believe that something related is undecidable, but there must be a precise, logical formulation of exactly the statement of the paradox: "how can infinitely many events string together into a single event?" is not something whose logical meaning is clear to me. I'm removing it for now, but if I'm mistaken, please add back! --MarkGall 21:02, 14 September 2009 (EDT)
- Good call. The Church-Turing thesis also doesn't belong there (its not even a mathematical statement...) Aroth 21:49, 14 September 2009 (EDT)