The Hajj: Now With Free Internet Access!
Katherine Mangu-Ward | December 21, 2007, 11:39am
Can't quite come up with the verse of the Koran you need for an argument? Wondering about the Prophet's views on proper attire for the hajj? Want to send mom a snap of you fulfilling your once-in-a-lifetime religious obligation?
For the next couple of weeks in Mecca, pilgrims coming for the hajj will be able to Wikipedia answers to those questions and send email in a flash thanks to a temporary Wi-Fi mesh network covering much of the holy city.
Hajjis, as the pilgrims are called, come to the city in Saudi Arabia from around the world for several days of religious rituals. More than 2 million gather each year. A network of about 70 meshed routers from Tropos Networks has been set up to provide free Internet connectivity, according to Denise Barton, director of marketing at Tropos. Users only have to register before using it. Barton believes it is the first public Wi-Fi network set up for the Hajj.
How awesome is the modern world that those first three sentences appear next to each other? To review: Practitioners of an ancient religion visit a chunk of black stone (possibly a meteorite) more ancient even than their own faith. After a few times around the old Kaaba, they can retire and check their email. Outstanding.
Via Julian Sanchez
John | December 21, 2007, 1:18pm | #
Brian,
Satan comes off as an almost workman like figure in Job. This scene in chapter one looks like something out of The Godfather with Satan playing Luca Brazi.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD."
Aresen | December 23, 2007, 12:05am | #
But let me understand, are you saying that not every event/effect has a cause in our universe?
Dr. T could answer this better than I, but here goes:
At the quantum scale, events are random, insofar as we can determine. i.e, The successive state has no direct relationship with the pre-existing state. There is no cause-and-effect relationship between them.
However, every state is limited by the probability of the state arising, defined in terms of the entropy of the system. It is the sum of the probabilities which gives rise to the perception of cause and effect.
For example, for each particle in your body, there is a probability that it is in a particular place at any given time. The probability that it will be at some other place at the next point in time can be determined by its entropy. The successive place where that particle will be is most likely to be near the point where it was in the initial state. However, there is a possibility that the successive point will be some arbitrary distance from the initial point: one picometer or one kilometer away. The probability of it being at the successive point drops off very fast with increasing distance, but there remains a possibility that the successive point will be one kilometer away.
The probability of a one kilometer change is so small that, expressed as a decimal fraction, the number of zeros between the decimal point and the first significant figure would fill the entire observable universe many times over, but the possibility does exist in quantum mechanics.
That is just for one particle. Taking it as a sum over the ~10^30 particles in your body, the probability of you vanishing from where you are and reappearing the next instant one kilometer away is infinitesimal.
Nevertheless, it is possible that this could occur. There would be no reason or cause that it happened, but it could occur.
IOW, random, causeless events are possible.
At the quantum scale, every event appears to be random. At the macroscopic scale you and I live in, events appear to be determined, but only because of the sum of a vast number of probabilities.
Brian Courts | December 23, 2007, 7:58pm | #
Aresen,
As to causality, I was tempted to address the fact that, at the very least, it is not something that can just be assumed to have a clear, unambiguous physical meaning in all contexts. But ultimately, I figured it wasn't necessary to bring that up in order to address the argument at hand, and given all the philosophical and scientific interpretations (e.g. in quantum mechanics it is going to be dependent on one's preferred interpretation) that it seemed like a hopelessly complicated issue to raise.
But there's even a more important objection to causality. When we're talking about "cause" within the universe, whatever one's interpretation of quantum theory, there is no reason to assume that the same concept of "cause" would exist in an extra-universal theory of cause and effect necessary for the argument that was given. The laws of physics that we attempt to get at with theories such as quantum physics and relativity, explain things
within the universe. If you want to assume those laws
do apply outside the universe (whatever that means) in order for your chosen interpretation of causality to hold, then you're also stuck with the fact that those same laws now explain the extra-universal space so well as to leave little room for an extra-universal god of the type he seems determined to find evidence for. On the other hand, if you accept that the laws of physics tell us nothing about this extra-universal space then your causality theories are also gone so the argument fails.
As for Adler's argument above, in step 3 he simply assumes, albeit with a lot of obfuscatory scientific-sounding language, that the universe needs a "cause". It's much like the ID'ers who use scientific sounding terms to try to hide the fact that their argument entirely rests on the simple assertion that
x is just too complicated to have evolved.
Further, his conclusion is just more assuming what he wants to prove. He says that whatever "caused" the universe must be both supernatural and not in need of any cause itself - hence God! Well, how convenient. So now we have a universe that needs a cause because he says so, caused by a supernatural being, because he says so, which doesn't need a cause, because he says so.
Look, if you want to believe some god exists outside of the laws of the universe, fine by me, but don't pretend to use the laws of physics and/or logic, which you claim this god to be outside of, to try to deduce its existence. It's nonsense. You can't have it both ways - using scientific (sounding) arguments when it suits you and then dismissing them as not applicable to a god when it becomes problematic. Just admit that a belief in god is not based on any evidence, cannot be scientifically tested, and will never be proved one way or the other. Of course, I realize that if you do that, it gets much harder to distinguish your god from my invisible dragon, but oh well... I still have faith in my dragon.
