[keiferski]

Entirely separate from the truth value or consequences of religious belief:

I think this paper makes sense. If you think of the God concept as a kind of externalized decision-making system that enables “cognitive work” that is beyond human capabilities - or the perception of human capabilities- then acceptance of AI is a similar phenomenon.

On a similar note, I haven’t done the research myself, but I have a solid feeling that the contemplation of an infinite, eternal, etc. God-concept (as opposed to more localized polytheistic concepts) can be tied to developments in mathematics throughout history.

[robertlagrant]

"The simplest explanation is usually the best one." - William of Occam

(English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and Catholic theologian.)

[keiferski]

I'm not sure what you mean by invoking this quote. Could you elaborate?

[snowpid]

Can you eloborate your last hypothesis about religion and math?

[keiferski]

Something like: polytheistic anthropomorphic gods don’t encourage humans to think abstractly.

An abstract God concept that is infinite, endless, etc. encourages humans to understand and justify/argue against such an entity, in the process forcing them to think in more abstract ways, which in a basic sense is what mathematics is. This is more-or-less the history of intellectual thought in the Western world since Christianity until fairly recently. (Dominated by God-adjacent topics.)

A question I might ask in researching this would be: why does it seem like mathematical development really accelerated in Europe after Europe had been thoroughly christianized? Throroughly here not meaning recent, but “sunk into the psyche over centuries.”

[snowpid]

I guess your knowledge about Europe mathematics not sufficient enough if we think about the Ancient Greek math which was very sophisticated.

[keiferski]

Where did I say that ancient Greek mathematics wasn't sophisticated? In addition to that, a sizable portion of ancient Greek thinkers would not really be considered "polytheistic" in the traditional sense and their focus on God being infinite, endless etc. is largely the source of such ideas in early Christianity and Islam.

> It was not until the fusion of Platonic and Aristotelian theology with Christianity that the concepts of strict omnipotence, omniscience, or benevolence became commonplace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_Ancient_Greek...

It's a basic historical fact that mathematics in Europe accelerated dramatically from the Renaissance onwards. This isn't really debatable.

[snowpid]

I doubt that Platon thought was like 'their focus on God being infinite, endless etc. '. Also Renaissance was very less Christian as the Middle Age. Newton e.g. was less Christian than you assume.

[keiferski]

The entire philosophy of Plato is about eternal forms. That’s probably the single most influential idea.

As I said above, the important cultural group was not recently converted Christians, but those that had grown up for centuries in Christian culture. As in, the entire Middle Ages…which led to the Renaissance.

Newton was a devout Christian. While he had unorthodox views, this is irrelevant for the point I’m making. It has nothing to do with the specifics of Christian denominations, rather the idea of an eternal and unchanging God.