Let’s Get Nerdy about God

The Analogy That Should End the God Debate

Almost 30 years ago, I stumbled into recognizing the profound connection between zero’s role as the foundational reference point in math and God’s role as the source of everything measurable. At the time, I assumed it gave the world answers that everyone who cared about God was seeking: undeniable and irrefutable proof for a universal origin with an example that aids in context and understanding.

To my surprise, I have struggled to gain the attention such a breakthrough deserves. I expected hostile rejection, so I honed my conclusions into an analogy and prepared myself for debate. I was not prepared for apathy or evasion. I am still shocked by the ad hominem arguments and the lack of understanding of basic algebra or analogies I witness when addressing people more educated than me.

It’s not like I am the first person to make the connection. Even Muhammad ibn Musa, the father of algebra, claims his discovery of zero’s role in math came while contemplating the nature of God. Unfortunately, those who see the parallels between God and zero still revert to imagination and personification in their description and explanation.

In the past 15 years, I’ve read a few online articles making weak attempts to describe God by using zero as an example. Because those articles lack depth or understanding of all the implications associated with the comparison, it appears as if it isn’t an original thought of the authors. They look like incomplete attempts at plagiarism due to a lack of understanding. 

The Natural Tendencies Associated with Supremacy

My experiences have shown me using more words supply more opportunities to build strawman arguments. The analogy I came up with to limit the words that could be taken out of context is: God is to reality what zero is to math. This was never meant to be an attempt to argue by analogy.

While taking SAT Prep classes in high school, I learned that analogies can narrow a definition of a word with multiple meanings by supplying clearer and more refined context. My goal was to clearly define the word God, prove the concept is based on reality, and describe the reality behind the mythological misconceptions without contradiction. 

If I were trying to use said analogy to make my argument, it is able to withstand any logical scrutiny. The only reason that wouldn’t be apparent is if someone rigidly insisted in holding onto a flawed or specialized definition of the word “god”. Personification of God is a natural tendency because supremacy implies choice, but reverence or worship is the only defining characteristic of a deity.

We have plenty of historical examples of non-beings that are worshipped as gods, such as: the sun, moons, stars, trees, mountains, wind, etc. Even the female reproductive organ has been deified. Let’s look at that word deify. It means to worship. It doesn’t mean to personify. Beings can be deified, which also illustrates personification and deification are not synonymous.

X Marks the Spot

Because the word “god” triggers the biases of atheists and theists alike, please allow me to replace it in the analogy with an “X”. For now, I am only making the argument that there is something in reality that does everything zero does in math. I will later use zero’s foundational role in math to make the argument that such a reality solely deserves our highest esteem.

To be clear, I am aware zero simply represents none and is unimpressive in its own right. As a value, it is neutral, ineffectual, and easy to ignore. As the reference point by which all other values are defined, it is necessary and represents the absolute, infinite, and perfect. While the value itself can be dismissed as a placeholder, what it holds a place for would be the source of any and every thing numbers could represent.

Arguments Against Math Don’t Compute

People who are more proficient in math than I have made the argument that math isn’t absolute or doesn’t accurately or completely represent reality. As a human construct, math must carry human limitations within it. I will not try to counter such logic. What I will do is point out these limitations are reflected in the inexact nature of linear equations being applied to a curved reality.

Every part of math that can be labeled as unproven, theoretical, abstract, or inexact either partially or completely abandons zero. Any linear equation that uses irrational numbers such as pi or imperfect square roots can only be estimated. In my humble opinion, I think this speaks to zero’s strength and absolute nature instead of it being used as an argument against it.

What is trusted emphatically and deemed absolute within math has zero at its foundation. That is because zero gives us an absolute reference point for all measurement and counting even though our vantage point will always be relative. Some people claim zero has arbitrary locations because we can use it anywhere. As a rebuttal, I point out there is nowhere to start that wouldn’t be zero because it is everywhere or omnipresent.

Almost Logical Argument Against Zero – First Cause

Zero’s existence isn’t proof of a creator. Zero’s role being necessary is. The reason behind the necessity is the fact that measurement requires a starting point. Only something immeasurable and completely devoid of finite attributes can be eternal and without a starting point. In order to have a first of anything, there must have previously been none.

Because that doesn’t exclude what we need for perception, cognition, or existence; there must be a placeholder that cannot be measured within math to make it logically sound and completely consistent. There can be no tangible evidence in reality because everything tangible is also measurable. Logic says the existence of the measurable and our ability to count explicitly implies the existence of an immeasurable source.

This logical conclusion is so basic and axiomatic that it rarely gets questioned, and many people who use this argument don’t fully understand it or struggle to clearly articulate it. Too often, this gets conflated into a first cause argument. Existence doesn’t need an origin and every cause doesn’t need an effect. Everything measurable was once none, so the only reality that could have always been could never be measured. 

Almost Logical Argument Against Zero – Reification

I get accused of something called the reification of zero whenever I point this out. Unfortunately, I don’t see how reifying any number could be possible, so I don’t know how to refute such a claim.

No number gets pulled out of thin air. They are all shorthand for describing things that exist, whether in reality or in people’s imagination. They are all adjectives that answer the question “how much” or “how many”.  Zero is simply shorthand for none. As a value, it is unimpressive and insignificant, but it doesn’t represent nothing as in total non-existence.

Zero is the foundational reference point in math because it is the only number that is able to represent the truly infinite. I’m aware that infinity is typically seen as indefinite or too large for any assigned value. Instead of getting into an argument over semantics, I will just ask this question to prove my point:

How many finite attributes or traits can the infinite have? None. How many finite traits would the typical idea of infinity have? Infinite? An infinite amount of finite traits is a blatant contradiction. Instead of arguing with me as if the infinite nature of zero is my opinion or referring to faulty conclusions within sound laws in order to pretend there is a flaw in my logic, recognize how limits in cognition can lead to untrue assumptions and intellectual blind spots. 

Almost Logical Argument Against Zero – Special Pleading

Sensory perception as our primary means of gathering information being used for proof when logic and math are better equipped is the easiest and most common way for our flawed tendencies to blind even our best and brightest. Our inability to produce tangible evidence for zero leading people to think it would be special pleading to include zero in math’s application to reality is a result of that blind spot.

I would argue special pleading would be the only reason for zero’s exclusion. You demand evidence that would, in essence, be countable even though there is none. The inability to count isn’t something that happens when we try to translate math to reality. Within math itself, zero has no countable attributes. Its unique traits should not be lost in translation.

It would be the only mathematical concept whose uniqueness wouldn’t be applied to reality. Even imaginary numbers maintain their uniqueness because we understand, in certain instances, we need the opposite perspective of a squared value. It shouldn’t be difficult to accept our inability to witness the reality that zero represents since none is the prerequisite of any measurement, which includes what we need for sensory perception to be possible.

Zero and the Attributes of God

Our inability to perceive the reality zero represents doesn’t not imply an inability to understand or relate. It does point out the flaws of imagination and personification as methods of description. Everything believed about God in reality using those flawed and contradictory methods of description applies to zero in math without them. They show why the reality zero represents deserves worship, the highest esteem, and the title “God”.

Just as zero is defined according to what it isn’t, it should be described according to what it means to everything else that exists. As the foundational reference point of math, zero is absolute, infinite, perfect, eternal, and omnipresent. It is also the source of all information and rules, which gets turned into omniscience and omnipotence through personification. 

Holding on to the causes of every theological paradox, conundrum, and contradiction in your definition of God in order to argue against the analogy that removes those issues is counterproductive and counterintuitive. Temporarily replacing it with an “x” should have circumvented your bias enough to show you that the reality behind an insignificant value having the most significant role in math is worthy of worship.

Reviewing the Analogy

Anyone who argues you could replace the “x” with a spaghetti monster, pink unicorn, leprechaun, or any other imaginary or mythological character either doesn’t understand how analogies work or is so blinded by bias that they’ve forgotten. That line of reasoning works against anthropomorphic deities because human like traits also imply visible attributes. Our reason for not being able to see such a God would be similar to why we can’t see fictitious creatures.

None of those figments of imagination could be compared to the absolute reference point of math. They still possess traits that would theoretically have magnitude or be countable. The reason for our inability to witness the reality that would correlate to zero is sensory perception is material, so it is an ineffective tool to use in reference to the origin of matter.

Those who point to zero’s neutrality and insignificance as a value in order to dispute the analogy or belittle zero’s role as the foundation of math are no better. I never said God is to reality what zero is to reality, which is what such an argument implies. Avoiding such a flawed interpretation of my comparison between God and zero is part of the point of putting it in an analogy.

Yes. Zero means none. In reality, that would be a lack. In place value, it is a place holder because leaving a gap would be confusing and closing the gap would be erroneous. In math, it is the immeasurable beginning that has no beginning itself. When trying to dismiss it as just a placeholder, consider what it is a placeholder for and why it is necessary.

Waste of Time and Intelligence 

Exhausting the bounds of your intellectual capacity and education in order to expose openings to misconstrue what I am presenting to you does not show my inability to clearly convey a message. It shows your inability to logically refute my assertions. If there were a method to confront them head on, there would be no cause to dance around them.

Whether you want to believe in a Creator that you can assign created traits to or think it is possible for measurable things to be eternal, any argument against the idea that everything finite must have the same infinite origin, which would have no finite attributes, would lead to a contradiction. That is a fallacy.

The only reason to try to make such an argument would be an assumption that our limits in cognition must be the limits of reality. The “we can’t perceive or imagine it, so it must not be true” mentality is an appeal to ignorance. That compounds the fallacy.

Trying to use the mathematical concept of infinity, which is potential infinity, or the law of conservation as evidence of measurable infinity begins as an appeal to authority and ends with the strawman fallacy. The mathematicians and scientists aren’t wrong. Those who paraphrase pioneering experts without fully integrating enough information that would give context quadruples the fallacious argument against the analogy with their confusions and conflations. 

Evading the Issue is an Admission of Defeat

We as humans take pride in our intellectual superiority over common beasts, so it would be a tragic waste to not be able to use said intellect in order to understand what is most important. Unfortunately, it has been some of our most intellectually gifted who have led the charge in making it seem insufficient for such a task.

Our limits in perception and cognition haven’t been the stumbling blocks. It has been our biases and egotistical tendencies. As long as we continue denying what must be true because we can’t see or imagine it, they will continue to bring confusion where there is already clarity.

Growth and learning can only come from accepting defeat. Contradictory concepts and logical fallacies are the only ways to continue arguing. Such tactics should be beneath those who already know better. Do better. People who are more educated should require less explanation. Education should not be a tool for conflation and evasion. God is to reality what zero is to math.