The Mask of Mother Teresa

Posted on by
Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love–and now become as the most hated one–the one–You have thrown away as unwanted–unloved. I call, I cling, I want–and there is no One to answer–no One on Whom I can cling–no, No One.–Alone … Where is my Faith–even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness–My God–how painful is this unknown pain–I have no Faith–I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart–& make me suffer untold agony.

So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them–because of the blasphemy–If there be God –please forgive me–When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven–there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul.–I am told God loves me–and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?

–[By Mother Teresa] ADDRESSED TO JESUS, AT THE SUGGESTION OF A CONFESSOR, UNDATED [Link]

<

p>Upon her death in 1997 it was revealed that Mother Teresa had asked that her private letters and confessions to her confessors (apparently she went from one to the next like a person in search of the right therapist) be burned so that they would never see the light of day. The Church, probably recognizing Teresa’s importance as the holiest woman in the world, overruled her request. They were also aware that any surviving notes or correspondence might be a useful part of the background investigation needed for her potential Sainthood (which there now is). Those letters have finally been revealed to the public in a new book titled Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. They are so startling in their rawness that many are now wondering if anyone really knew Mother Teresa. Time Magazine has a great dissection of the revelations in the book and indicates how Teresa might now become a saint to both the faithful and those who don’t believe in God.

On Dec. 11, 1979, Mother Teresa, the “Saint of the Gutters,” went to Oslo. Dressed in her signature blue-bordered sari and shod in sandals despite below-zero temperatures, the former Agnes Bojaxhiu received that ultimate worldly accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance lecture, Teresa, whose Missionaries of Charity had grown from a one-woman folly in Calcutta in 1948 into a global beacon of self-abnegating care, delivered the kind of message the world had come to expect from her. “It is not enough for us to say, ‘I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,'” she said, since in dying on the Cross, God had “[made] himself the hungry one–the naked one–the homeless one.” Jesus’ hunger, she said, is what “you and I must find” and alleviate…

Yet less than three months earlier, in a letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public, she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. “Jesus has a very special love for you,” she assured Van der Peet. “[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see,–Listen and do not hear–the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak … I want you to pray for me–that I let Him have [a] free hand…” [Link]

<

p>Reading some of her confessions was deeply moving. It seems that the more success that Mother Teresa saw in her work in Calcutta, the darker and emptier her soul became, and the farther she drifted from the light of her God’s love. Far from being a “Saint of the Gutters,” she seems to use the perpetual darkness within her to drive her forward like some sort of “Queen of the Dammed.” Some theologians in the Time article use an analogy that describes her as a jilted lover who still carries a torch for a man (Christ) who she knows is never coming home to her.

How can you assume the lover’s ardor when he no longer grants you his voice, his touch, his very presence?… [Link]

<

p>As you can imagine, these letters are a gold mine for theologians, atheists, psychologists, Nihilists, Existentialists, etc.

Psychologists have long recognized that people of a certain personality type are conflicted about their high achievement and find ways to punish themselves. Gottlieb notes that Teresa’s ambitions for her ministry were tremendous. Both he and Kolodiejchuk are fascinated by her statement, “I want to love Jesus as he has never been loved before.” Remarks the priest: “That’s a kind of daring thing to say.” Yet her letters are full of inner conflict about her accomplishments. Rather than simply giving all credit to God, Gottlieb observes, she agonizes incessantly that “any taking credit for her accomplishments–if only internally–is sinful” and hence, perhaps, requires a price to be paid. A mild secular analog, he says, might be an executive who commits a horrific social gaffe at the instant of a crucial promotion. For Teresa, “an occasion for a modicum of joy initiated a significant quantity of misery,” and her subsequent successes led her to perpetuate it. [Link]

<

p>That last bit I highlighted has similarities to Hinduism, especially in the Gita where Krishna continually warns Arjun that even ill thoughts may result in bad karma. The central themes found in Teresa’s writings remind me a lot of some poetry by another “saint.” Especially her references to the dark night within her soul.

A night full of talking that hurts
my worst held-back secrets. Everything
has to do with loving and not loving.
This night will pass.
Then we have work to do.

-Jelaluddin Rumi

<

p>

It was when Mother Teresa finally accepted that the darkness would never leave her that she embraced it:

I can’t express in words–the gratitude I owe you for your kindness to me–for the first time in … years–I have come to love the darkness–for I believe now that it is part of a very, very small part of Jesus’ darkness & pain on earth. You have taught me to accept it [as] a ‘spiritual side of your work’ as you wrote–Today really I felt a deep joy–that Jesus can’t go anymore through the agony–but that He wants to go through it in me.

–TO NEUNER, CIRCA 1961… [Link]

Of all of the quotes included in the Time article, the following one touched me the most. Although she did not realize it, what she was actually saying mirrored the central idea found in the Bodhicharyavatara, written by 8th century Indian scholar Shantideva:

“If I ever become a Saint–I will surely be one of ‘darkness.’ I will continually be absent from Heaven–to [light] the light of those in darkness on earth,” she wrote in 1962. [Link]

<

p>Theologically, this is a bit odd since most orthodox Christianity defines heaven as God’s eternal presence and doesn’t really provide for regular no-shows at the heavenly feast. [Link]

Compare this to the idea of a Bodhisattva:

Another common conception of the bodhisattva is one who delays his own entering into Nirvana in order to save all sentient beings out of his enormous compassion. He is on a mission to liberate all sentient beings, and only then will he rest in his own enlightenment. [Link]

<

p>

It begs the question, was Teresa really a Mahayana Buddhist at heart? It shows you how human thought can ultimately converge on some universal themes.

<

p>

But really, we shouldn’t know any of this:

Please destroy any letters or anything I have written.

–TO PICACHY, APRIL 1959… [Link]

252 thoughts on “The Mask of Mother Teresa”

  1. Apparently, this is not a brand new story– the letters were made public at least as early as 2001. But only now have they caught our attention. Why? Could it be because Septer 11 happened just four days later and everything else in the news cycle got buried? And how many of the readers here knew about this?

    Mother Teresa sure went through a lot. Again, I ask, why are these revelations receiving so much attention now? Any educated guesses on that?

  2. you have no clue what you are talking about and i do.

    Thats very funny. Especially coming from the pomposity whose confusions, ignorance and illogic have been exposed, and who just accused me of lacking humility!

    godel’s results about enumerability is similar to that. he doesn’t say axiomatic reasoning is wrong.

    His theorem proves that axiomatic reasoning is either incomplete or inconsistent. Which you are stubbornly denying out of sheer stupidity.

    you have no idea if consciousness can be explained or not. maybe it is just biochemical. you don’t know and i don’t know. and neither does your superstition.

    That proves that you lied when you claimed that your philosophy starts with Vedanta. Do you even know what advaita vedanta teaches about consciousness?

    The notion that consciousness is biochemical is absurd. To claim that subjective, immaterial self-awareness can arise out of random permutations of objective insentient matter is preposterous. Science remains clueless about consciousness for good reason: the inquiry into subjective reality is beyond the domain of science.

  3. Yes, but all of those men were genius scientists. In practice most people that say “some things can’t be explained by science,” also believe in a “demon haunted world.”

    Maybe so Abhi, but most “scientific atheists” who claim to swear by Evolutionary Theory/the Big Bang/Quantum Mechanics don’t have more than a newspaper understanding of it either; they are simply going with the flow of conventional opinion.

    “It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near those of Spinoza:

    And Spinoza was a pantheist who believed that god was everywhere, including the toilet seat! Casting doubt on a personal God does not vindicate “scientific atheism” – most Asian systems and some Christian ones as well have conceived Impersonal Absolutes.

    Eddington wrote a defense of mysticism. Hesienberg sided with Plato over Democritus Schroedinger was practically an Advaitin Einstein extolled about the cosmic religious feeling

    These fathers of modern physics did not take the reductive path some of the more boorish of the “scientific atheists” are taking here. They were far more open minded.

  4. Maybe so Abhi, but most “scientific atheists” who claim to swear by Evolutionary Theory/the Big Bang/Quantum Mechanics don’t have more than a newspaper understanding of it either; they are simply going with the flow of conventional opinion.

    There is no such thing as a “scientific atheist.” You can be a scientist and an atheist or a traditionally religious person. They are not a packaged deal. A scientist does not have to have more than a newspapers understanding of the Big Bang/Quantum Mechanics. They need only have a solid understanding of the factual scientific method. On the flipside, a religious person doesn’t need to understand the origins of their religion, how it evolved and is tied to their particular culture, they only need blind faith. That’s the difference.

  5. They need only have a solid understanding of the factual scientific method. On the flipside, a religious person doesn’t need to understand the origins of their religion, how it evolved and is tied to their particular culture, they only need blind faith. That’s the difference.

    Zing! (a delicious zing, with the faint aftertaste o’ fresh-squeezed lime)

    Einstein extolled about the cosmic religious feeling

    Care to expand upon this?

    what like, this?

    “I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. what I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person witha feeling of humility. this is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

    the Idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive.”

    and i freely admit, i copied this out of The God Delusion (p15) and didn’t bother to check the specific source. I am going straight to citation hell.

  6. On the flipside, a religious person doesn’t need to understand the origins of their religion, how it evolved and is tied to their particular culture, they only need blind faith. That’s the difference.

    Says who? That’s essentializing religious people as unthinking automatons. The profound doubt of no one less than Mother Theresa above demonstrates that that’s not always true. BTW aren’t you a deist?

    Care to expand upon this?

    http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/einstein_religion.html

  7. On the flipside, a religious person doesn’t need to understand the origins of their religion, how it evolved and is tied to their particular culture, they only need blind faith. That’s the difference. Says who? That’s essentializing religious people as unthinking automatons.

    No, that’s brevity. And absolutely true. You don’t even need to recite a few words in Arabic, know your commandments, memorize the Torah or be able to write a thesis paper on the protestant reformation to be a Muslim, Jew or Christian (same can apply to Hindu, Buddhist and others). All you need to do is be born into a family that ascribes to that particular faith, and presto: you’re one of the band–from birth! Even when you become able to make decisions on your own, all you need to do is assure your parents that you ‘believe’ and presto: you’re reaffirmed as a solid member of the band!

  8. No, that’s brevity. And absolutely true. You don’t even need to recite a few words in Arabic, know your commandments, memorize the Torah or be able to write a thesis paper on the protestant reformation to be a Muslim, Jew or Christian (same can apply to Hindu, Buddhist and others).

    Much more difficult are the requirements for joining the Church of Latter Day Atheists. You need to proclaim your belief in the Truth of Evolution, the Truth of Quantum Mechanics, the Truth of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, carp a little about the obscurantism of the faithful, and you’re in!

  9. Says who?

    The faithful have no empirical evidence to show. They only have internal evidence that can’t be shown. Therefore you cannot compare faith to science like you tried to above. It’s apples to oranges.

    BTW aren’t you a deist?

    It is the deist within me that believes in God yet feels it is my duty as a human and a scientist to help disprove his existence. I feel that I honor “him” most by striving to prove that everything makes sense without “him,” knowing that failure in this regard is ok.

  10. It’s apples to oranges.

    I meant many people who proclaim atheism don’t have a studied understanding of science. They are relying on the current consensus to inform their worldview. I didn’t compare faith to science. I actually agree its apples to oranges.

  11. It is the deist within me that believes in God yet feels it is my duty as a human and a scientist to help disprove his existence. I feel that I honor “him” most by striving to prove that everything makes sense without “him,” knowing that failure in this regard is ok.

    Not that you need approval from anyone here, but this is probably the best comment I’ve read on this post thus far. Succinct and something I can truly respect and understand regardless of whether I personally identify with it or not.

  12. Much more difficult are the requirements for joining the Church of Latter Day Atheists.

    Much as the suddenly alarmed agnostic community would care to believe, there actually is no organized, sudden, groundswell of support for Dawkins-lite pseudo-theological, anti-faith tomfoolery. His and his compatriots book sales are more a reflection of the atheist population that has heretofore never expressed itself in a meaningful, publicly recognized way.

    You need to proclaim your belief in the Truth of Evolution, the Truth of Quantum Mechanics, the Truth of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, carp a little about the obscurantism of the faithful, and you’re in!

    Evolutionary theory is, by the standards of today, a fairly well supported theory (and please, no semantic dithering about the weight of god’s law vs the man’s theory). The flying spaghetti monster is a modern allusion to Bertrand’s flying teapot, which is a colorful metaphor for expressing the uselessness of unfalsifiable propositions like the existence of God.

    You seem to be suggesting that those belonging to a particular religion, and those who define themselves primarily as people who do not and also reject any other superstition, are equally likely to not understand all that which would qualify them as a believer or an atheist.

    am i correct?

  13. You seem to be suggesting that those belonging to a particular religion, and those who define themselves primarily as people who do not and also reject any other superstition, are equally likely to not understand all that which would qualify them as a believer or an atheist.

    I’m suggesting that its possible to be a nuanced theist and an unnuanced atheist. We are not all the “idiots” as one commenter above suggested, that some atheists think we are.

  14. I’m suggesting that its possible to be a nuanced theist and an unnuanced atheist. We are not all the “idiots” as one commenter above suggested, that some atheists think we are.

    I thought that went without saying. Science accepts all possibilities (in theory) before confirming or rejecting them by experimentation.

  16. Brazen duplicity. Mr clueless is posing as someone who has actually read and understood the highly complex original paper, when it was exposed in this very thread that he wasnt even aware of Godel’s Theorem and its profound implications.

    Just being able to understand Godel’s paper is not something so big as to be proud of; Contrary to your claim that its “highly complex”, it is actually a fairly simple exercise intellectually, and well within the grasp of a graduate student(or even an advanced undergraduate)

    Trust me, quoting Godel’s result in this discussion is out of place. You are doing the thing precisely what #183 also pointed out. I suggest you give up on us, and move onto people who are clueless enough to buy your claims (although its not a very ethical thing to do :P)

    Newton spent more time pondering over religious metaphysics than on physics. Schrodinger was deeply into advaita vedanta and even wrote extensively about his metaphysical beliefs. Einstein too wrote much about religion. He did not believe in the personal dualistic god of the jewish and christian Bible but was attracted to pantheism and buddhism:

    Mind you, metaphysics does not equal religion and god. As an aside, even if you proved beyond all doubt that newton worshipped jesus christ every day, that isn’t quite persuasive enough for a rational thinker to do the same thing just because newton did it. Afterall, newton can be human too. he isn’t god 😛 (pun intended)

    I shoudl probably cop out now 😀

  18. you have no clue what you are talking about and i do.
    Thats very funny. Especially coming from the pomposity whose confusions, ignorance and illogic have been exposed, and who just accused me of lacking humility!

    give me a break. i am not the one confused here. i simplified godel’s theorem to explain it as non-technically as possible. you choose to call me names instead of trying to understand. i have told you time and again that words are not used left and right in math, they have a very unambiguous connotation. you are just using ambiguity of meaning in english to extrapolate some beautiful, though technical, work into something ridiculous to suit your worldview.

    i don’t expect people not in math or theoretical cs to bother about the intricacies of godel’s theorem. but if you want to pretend you know everything about it, at least go to someone ignorant.

    godel’s results about enumerability is similar to that. he doesn’t say axiomatic reasoning is wrong.
    His theorem proves that axiomatic reasoning is either incomplete or inconsistent. Which you are stubbornly denying out of sheer stupidity.

    no one except people like you doubt axiomatic reasoning in practice—if nothing get that into your head. everyone in math still uses axiomatic reasoning. and until you understand what godel means and learn some basic decency and stop calling everyone names, i am not going to waste my time on this.

  19. That proves that you lied when you claimed that your philosophy starts with Vedanta. Do you even know what advaita vedanta teaches about consciousness?

    i only said my philosophy starts with them. i don’t claim to adhere to either advaita or vishistadvaita, both of which i do have a good idea of. these people talked about consciousness a millenium ago when the state of the art in knowledge was completely different. no point in harping on that unchanged even today—that is what is called dogma.

    and besides, i have no interest in discussing any of my beliefs with you or anyone else. a belief by definition is indefensible. and it should be treated as just that, something to be thrown away the moment anything contradicts it or if anything more logical shows up.

  20. Sathya, you surely know your quotes are unconvincing to someone who has studied the subject. Nobody wants H. on their team, just like everybody wants Einstein. There are papers in the law school at Rutgers, pertaining to Nazis, outlining the plans to eliminate Christianity. He succeeded actually. Few Germans today are believers. And who would trust the public announcements of this person? He was intensely superstitious, loved ritual and used it to the maximum. www-camlaw.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/articles/8_1_1.pdf

    In any case, H. is someone noone wants on their team. If you want to argue that H. was 1) an atheist, 2) a Christian, 3) an agnostic 4) a deist 5) a satanist 6) none of the above, this website might be interesting. http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mischedj/ca_hitler.html Here are some of the juicier quotes: Hitler may in public have claimed to be doing the will of God, but records of his private conversations show otherwise. Many of these were recorded by his secretary and published in a book called Hitler’s Table Talk (Adolf Hitler, London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1953). I have lifted the text of these from the soc.religion.christian newsgroup’s Hitler FAQ. Night of 11th-12th July, 1941

    “National Socialism and religion cannot exist together…. “The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity…. “Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things.” (p 6 & 7)

    10th October, 1941, midday

    “Christianity is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature. Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of the human failure.” (p 43)

    14th October, 1941, midday

    “The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death…. When understanding of the universe has become widespread… Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity…. “Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity…. And that’s why someday its structure will collapse…. “…the only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little…. “Christianity the liar…. “We’ll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State.” (p 49-52)

    19th October, 1941, night

    “The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity.”

    21st October, 1941, midday

    “Originally, Christianity was merely an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer…. “The decisive falsification of Jesus’ doctrine was the work of St.Paul. He gave himself to this work… for the purposes of personal exploitation…. “Didn’t the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. Today, it’s in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today, Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea.” (p 63-65)

    13th December, 1941, midnight

    “Christianity is an invention of sick brains: one could imagine nothing more senseless, nor any more indecent way of turning the idea of the Godhead into a mockery…. …. “When all is said, we have no reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let’s be the only people who are immunised against the disease.” (p 118-119)

    14th December, 1941, midday

    “Kerrl, with noblest of intentions, wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and Christianity. I don’t believe the thing’s possible, and I see the obstacle in Christianity itself…. “Pure Christianity– the Christianity of the catacombs– is concerned with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite simply to the annihilation of mankind. It is merely whole-hearted Bolshevism, under a tinsel of metaphysics.” (p 119 & 120)

    9th April, 1942, dinner

    “There is something very unhealthy about Christianity.” (p 339)

    27th February, 1942, midday

    “It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors– but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie.” “Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity…. My regret will have been that I couldn’t… behold .” (p 278)

    On the lighter side, we have the Straight Dope taking aim: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhitlerchristian.html Dear Straight Dope: “In my numerous online debates in various chatrooms, I have learned the following: many Christians seem to think that Adolf Hitler was an atheist (or at least wasn’t “Christian”). Of course I and my fellow atheists know better, as Hitler mentions his devotion to Christianity numerous times in his writings. Can you clear this up for me? Was Hitler an “honest to God” Christian, or was he simply using religion as a means of control? –Carl Stieger”

    SDSTAFF David replies:

    The short answer is a definite “maybe” or, more precisely, “probably neither.” The looooong answer is somewhat more complicated.

    You are right that Hitler did mention Christianity many times in his writings. He paid Christianity a lot of lip service in Mein Kampf, and he claimed to be a Christian. But Hitler’s secretary, Martin Bormann, also declared that “National Socialism [Nazism] and Christianity are irreconcilable” and Hitler didn’t squawk too much about it. Similarly, Hermann Rauschning, a Hitler associate, said, “One is either a Christian or a German. You can’t be both.” In addition, Hitler declared Nazism the state religion and the Bible was replaced by Mein Kampf in the schools. You really want confusion? Randy Alley, one of my best WWII history sources, noted that the SS were supposedly forbidden to believe in God–yet the military’s belt buckles said “Gott mit uns” (“God is with us”)! See photo, below. (you have to go to the web site)

  21. Given the original post was on Mother Teresa, an article(it sounds very reasonable and level headed to me but might be harsh for some on this board given the esteem for mother teresa) by Susan Jacoby in today’s Washington Post On Faith section.

    http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/susan_jacoby/2007/08/since_i_never_thought_much.html

    Some quotes from the article to think about(which have been covered books by Hitchens and Aroup Chatterjee):

    Her “Home for the Dying” in Calcutta provided no modern medical care–not even modern painkillers–for the terminally ill.

    Teresa never showed any concern, in India or elsewhere, about the root causes of poverty–including lack of education, corrupt dictatorships, inequitable distribution of wealth, bigotry against social, ethnic, or religious underclasses, and contempt for women.

  22. Jacoby is atheist or agnostic, raised Catholic but never a true believer, and she thinks she has some Jewish roots which perhaps make her feel even more alienated, though she seems to retain a certain affection for her experience in Catholic school. She’s an interesting writer who undoubtedly shares a lot of MT’s mindset (doubts, etc.), but not one likely to see someone like MT in the most flattering light. Yet such is the state of “faith” today, that such agnostic and skpetical qualifications are often considered the best credentials for a writer on religious matters. I may have given the impression of being very pro-MT; actually I too have always wondered a about her motivations. I was always appalled by her opposition to birth control and abortion. Abortion I could somewhat understand, but birth control? In any case, she, of all people, attacking the roots of poverty? What could she do other than what some of the “liberation theologists” have done in places like Latin America? How much good have they done, except for individuals who felt heartened. I have worked with organizations that supposedly attack the “roots of poverty”, i.e. USAID, etc. and my conclusion, echoed by quite a few who have thrown up their hands, is that the roots must be pulled up by the people themselves. Billions have been spent attacking the “roots of poverty”, moving the dictators around or out. I won’t get into Iraq and Afghanistan as that would go in yet another direction. Again, MT at least DID something in the way that she personally knew how. She had faults and failings, one of them being she was not a doctor, and a lot of her work did have to do with the sick. She also never went through the birth process herself, which might have made her a less than sympathetic to those who underwent it repeatedly only to bring forth more mouths they could not feed, but I speak as male, so maybe that’s not fair to MT.

  24. Contrary to your claim that its “highly complex”, it is actually a fairly simple exercise intellectually

    First he lied that he had actually read Godel’s original proof, and now he is lying that it was a “simple exercise intellectually”. Lies piled upon lies. Have you no shame? Read and weep:

    http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~chaitin/lowell.html

    “Gödel’s result, like any very fundamental basic result, starts off by being very mysterious and complicated, with a long impenetrable proof. People said about Gödel’s original paper the same thing that they said about Einstein’s theory of relativity, which is that there are less than five people on this entire planet who understand it.”

    Trust me, quoting Godel’s result in this discussion is out of place

    Trust him its out of place, but he cant explain why in this forum! That sounds too much like the line sleazy con men use on their victims. Quit beating around the bush you fraud and explain why Godel’s Theorem is out of place in a discussion of the use of reason to show its limits. If you had actually read it you would know that it is the perfect example.

    even if you proved beyond all doubt that newton worshipped jesus christ every day, that isn’t quite persuasive enough for a rational thinker to do the same thing just because newton did it.

    Firstly, you ignoramus, Newton did not worship Jesus; he was a Unitarian. He did not believe in the christian Trinity. Jesus was not God to him. Secondly, if it doesnt mean anything to you that the very top echelon of scientists were theists, why then did you feel compelled to lie that they were not?

  25. First he lied that he had actually read Godel’s original proof, and now he is lying that it was a “simple exercise intellectually”. Lies piled upon lies. Have you no shame? Read and weep:

    What you quoted is actually a build up to something else. I agree with the author that you quote, and what he is actually trying to convey there is precisely what I meant, when I said “simple exercise intellectually”.

    So in 1931 Gödel’s proof was like that. If you look at his original paper, it’s very complicated. The details are programming details we would say now—really it’s a kind of complication that we all know how to handle now-–but at the time it looked very mysterious. This was a 1931 mathematics paper, and all of a sudden you’re doing what amounts to LISP programming, thirty years before LISP was invented! And there weren’t even any computers then! But when you get to Turing, he makes Gödel’s result seem much more natural. And I think that my idea of program-size complexity and information—really, algorithmic information content—makes Gödel’s result seem more than natural, it makes it seem, I’d say, obvious, inevitable. But of course that’s the way it works, that’s how we progress.

  26. And btw, as to why its out of place, another commentor actually already linked to two articles explaining it, and they both deal with exactly the two results you quoted: Godel’s incompleteness and the uncertainity principle.

    Read #183 and #217 and stop the bitching.

  27. i am not the one confused here. i simplified godel’s theorem to explain it as non-technically as possible.

    You explained nothing. All you showed was your inability to think logically. Your self-congratulations are laughable.

    you are just using ambiguity of meaning in english

    Only a completely clueless poser would keep insisting that mathematical proof is dependent on the language used!

    everyone in math still uses axiomatic reasoning

    So what? Everyone in mechanical engineering still uses classical physics. For the same reason: it still works as well as before. How does that change the fact that deeper truths have been discovered?

    i only said my philosophy starts with them. i don’t claim to adhere to either advaita or vishistadvaita, both of which i do have a good idea of. these people talked about consciousness a millenium ago when the state of the art in knowledge was completely different. no point in harping on that unchanged even today—that is what is called dogma.

    What kind of an irrational fool starts his philosophy with something he does not even believe in??

    i have no interest in discussing any of my beliefs with you or anyone else.

    Why did you join this debate then? If you have indefensible beliefs that you wish to hide thats your problem. Why mock the indefensible beliefs of others then? If you like to dish it out be prepared to take it too.

  29. you surely know your quotes are unconvincing to someone who has studied the subject.

    Direct quotes from Hitler’s magnum opus and his speeches are “unconvincing” to you but dubious second-hand accounts are very convincing? You realise how irrational this is? For a debunking of your false conclusions from the Table Talk read the following article. A small sample:

    http://nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm

    “In an attempt to rewrite history, those who desire to eliminate Hitler from membership of Christianity, always find an excuse to dismiss Hitler’s actual words. Instead they rely on indirect quotes from a questionable source such as Bormann’s edited version of the table talk. But if we were to use this form of dubious scholarship, shouldn’t we also quote Hitler from other indirect sources? If so, then, again, their plan fails and reveals the slanting of their bias. For if we took these apocryphal sources as evidence, then Hitler’s Christianity become even more evident.

    Those who knew Hitler remarked about his Christian views.

    Here we have a Christian minister to his fellow Christians:

    If anyone can lay claim to God's help, then it is Hitler, for without God's benevolent fatherly hand, without his blessing, the nation would not be where it stands today. It is an unbelievable miracle that God has bestowed on our people.

-Minister Rust, in a speech to a mass meeting of German Chrisitans on June 29, 1933 [Helmreich, p. 138]

    The established Methodist church paper, the Friedensglocke, vouched for the authenticity of a story about Hitler where he invited a group of deaconesses from the Bethel Institutions into his home at Obersalzberg:

    The deaconesses entered the chamber and were astonished to see the pictures of Frederick the Great, Luther, and Bismarck on the wall. Then Hitler said:

Those are the three greatest men that God has given the German people. From Fredrick the Great I have learned bravery, and from Bismarck statecraft. The greatest of the three is Dr. Martin Luther, for he made it possible to bring unity among the German tribes by giving them a common language through his translation of the Bible into German....

[Note that Hitler's own words about his admiration for Martin Luther are expressed in Mein Kampf.]

One sister could not refrain from saying: Herr Reichkanzler, from where do you get the courage to undertake the great changes in the whole Reich?

Thereupon Hitler took out of his pocket the New Testament of Dr. Martin Luther, which one could see had been used very much, and said earnestly: "From God's word." [Helmreich, p. 139]

    Even the Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich who visited Hitler at his mountain retreat in Obersalzburg confessed:

    Without a doubt the chancellor lives in faith in God. He recognizes Christianity as the foundation of Western culture...[Helmreich, p.279]

    And this comes from reputable Christian sources of the day including a Cardinal! How odd that there are Christians today who think they can divine the mind of an anti-Christian Hitler they never met, removed by a generation, and dismiss all his direct quotes about Jesus, while denying their own brethren of the Church who actually talked with Hitler. If prominent Christians in the 1930s could be so easily deceived, could not be the same be applied to today’s Christians? And if deception describes the temper of the faithful, then what does that say for Christianity as a whole and the thinking process that it entails?

    And on Hitler’s allegiance to his “true” Christian spirit:

    I do not remember even a single occasion when Hitler gave any instructions that ran counter to the true Christian spirit and to humaness.

-Wagener, in Hitler-- Memoirs of a Confinant, p.147"
    the SS were supposedly forbidden to believe in God–yet the military’s belt buckles said “Gott mit uns” (“God is with us”)!

    And this you find to be very convincing proof that the nazis were atheists? Get your freakin head examined. Pretty twisted of you to think that atheist god-haters would wear the slogan “God is with us”! Why would anti-christians claim that they were christians; or bury their fellow soldiers under christian crosses; or pray with christian pastors to the christian god in the battlefield and so on?

    Nobody wants H. on their team

    And thats exactly why post WWII christians feel compelled to lie about Hitler’s christianity.

    Few Germans today are believers.

    How can you blame them after the horrors that the christian nazis wrought?

    And who would trust the public announcements of this person? He was intensely superstitious, loved ritual and used it to the maximum.

    Sounds like you are talking of the Pope 🙂

    Since you are one of those gullible conspiracy theory types perhaps you should also check out the sites which reveal the catholic Popes secret occult satanic beliefs…

  31. ‘s 224-29:

    Too much “inside baseball”–I’m not embarrassed to say I couldn’t follow this, nor do I have a clue as to who’s winning…..

  32. I agree with the author that you quote, and what he is actually trying to convey there is precisely what I meant, when I said “simple exercise intellectually”.

    You pathetic shyster. If you agree with the author, you must admit you lied when you claimed that you read the original paper and that you found it easy going. The original paper was daunting: “People said about Gödel’s original paper the same thing that they said about Einstein’s theory of relativity, which is that there are less than five people on this entire planet who understand it.”

    When he writes: “really it’s a kind of complication that we all know how to handle now” he isnt talking about the original paper, which remains difficult reading, but about later elucidations of his proof.

    If you had any shame you would slither off and hide somewhere.

  33. I hear you, Rob. But the beauty is I also don’t want to try to get it.

    Something about Godel’s proof and axiomatic reasoning. Err…..Yep, that’s all I got.

  34. Too much “inside baseball”–I’m not embarrassed to say I couldn’t follow this, nor do I have a clue as to who’s winning…..
    Something about Godel’s proof and axiomatic reasoning. Err…..Yep, that’s all I got.

    Which is why you might want to follow the links to the article and the wikipedia entry on quantum flapdoodle that I included.

    Sathya, you are doing a great impression of Prema (the commenter, not the emotion).

    All this sound and fury apart, I have a different question: Have people read Hitchens’ book on Teresa, and what are their opinions of his arguments? I haven’t (only read synopses of it), but I always found her consorting with dictators very troublesome, so that part about his sensationalistic titled book resonated with me. I think he also says a lot about how she let her insistence on proving the superiority of simple love and faith over modern medicine probably led to more suffering than was warranted for many of these lepers (of course, this begs the question of what their alternatives would have been in the absence of Teresa, and I don’t know that living a life on the streets of Calcutta while being shunned by everybody would have been better).

  35. You explained nothing. All you showed was your inability to think logically. Your self-congratulations are laughable.

    wtf is all this? my comment #174

    Godel proved that no consistent and complete axiom set can be enumerated. It has a very precise meaning, something that is lost in translation to English.

    For example, think of all possible numerical constants (like pi, 2, -2, 1.3, etc). They cannot be “enumerated” as well (it is possible to show that). Doesn’t mean they are meaningless, or that they do not exist. You can even say whether or not something is lesser than the other.

    and #199

    but again, let me get this into your head: when someone in math says enumerate, it has a specific meaning. it means you can write them one after another. you cannot, for example, write all real numbers one after another, because if you do so, one can always find a number that couldn’t have been on your list. read my old comment again.

    godel’s results about enumerability is similar to that.

    i have no interest in discussing any of my beliefs with you or anyone else.
    Why did you join this debate then? If you have indefensible beliefs that you wish to hide thats your problem. Why mock the indefensible beliefs of others then? If you like to dish it out be prepared to take it too.

    your assumptions of what godel said are not “beliefs”—they are wanton exaggeration of science. the beliefs i mention here are my versions of the advaita and vishistadvaita philosophies, if you actually take time out to read comments. that is not being debated here—in fact you don’t even know them and it is none of your business.

    Only a completely clueless poser would keep insisting that mathematical proof is dependent on the language used!

    what the f(*& do you mean by this?? i said you are using ambiguity of meaning in english to twist and turn things into whatever you want, and you say this?? in your zeal to shout names, do you not even read comments? this is getting really irritating.

    and don’t you dare call me names again.

  36. It doesn’t mean, and is not the case that, Turing and others gave alternate proofs or “elucidated” godel’s proof “more clearly”. He just means that being aware of all these other results sets the context for why the exact same godel’s paper would be so much easier to understand in 2000 than in 1930.

    The guy you quoted out of context actually says

    So in summary, I have two ways to explain why I think Gödel incompleteness is natural and inevitable rather than mysterious and surprising.

    now, let me include even more stuff around the small para that you cherry picked…

    the below part starts off with a reference to wiles’ proof of fermat’s theroem….

    And when you work with those concepts it’ll appear immediately obvious—Wiles’s proof will be a trivial afterthought—because you’ll have imbedded it in the appropriate theoretical context. And the same thing is happening with incompleteness. GÃÆ’¶del’s result, like any very fundamental basic result, starts off by being very mysterious and complicated, with a long impenetrable proof. People said about GÃÆ’¶del’s original paper the same thing that they said about Einstein’s theory of relativity, which is that there are less than five people on this entire planet who understand it. The joke was that Eddington, astronomer royal Sir Arthur Eddington, is at a formal dinner party—this was just after World War I—and he’s introduced as one of the three men who understands Einstein’s theory. And he says, “Let’s see, there’s Einstein, and there’s me, but who’s the other guy?” I’m ruining this joke! [Laughter] So in 1931 GÃÆ’¶del’s proof was like that. If you look at his original paper, it’s very complicated. The details are programming details we would say now—really it’s a kind of complication that we all know how to handle now—but at the time it looked very mysterious. This was a 1931 mathematics paper, and all of a sudden you’re doing what amounts to LISP programming, thirty years before LISP was invented! And there weren’t even any computers then! But when you get to Turing, he makes GÃÆ’¶del’s result seem much more natural. And I think that my idea of program-size complexity and information—really, algorithmic information content—makes GÃÆ’¶del’s result seem more than natural, it makes it seem, I’d say, obvious, inevitable. But of course that’s the way it works, that’s how we progress.

    First of all, the guy who wrote that stuff is obviously exaggerating in that essay for some reason and it looks like its meant to be a very light hearted essay. For instance, he says things like:

    “There’s a crazy new field called quantum computing where the idea is to stop fighting it. If you can’t lick them, join them!”

    “If a quantum computer is uncertain, maybe you can have it uncertainly do many computations at the same time! So instead of fighting it, the idea is to use it, which is a great idea.”

    “The reason for using axioms is because they’re simple and believable. So the sets of axioms that mathematicians normally use are fairly concise, otherwise no one would believe in them!”

    “So you see, the way that mathematics progresses is you trivialize everything!”

    Although the essay as a whole is a nice read, I think even he would be embarassed if you took his stuff byte size and quoted them like this.

    Disclaimer: I am mainly responding for others, and not for the cocktail physics quack, who I dont consider worthy of engaging in a discussion on this subject anymore.

    Sathya, will you please go back to torturing, maybe some kids in your neighborhood, and leave me alone? I don’t like talking to you.

  37. Something about Godel’s proof and axiomatic reasoning. Err…..Yep, that’s all I got.

    A fairly straightforward explanation of Godel’s theorem can be found here (no, I haven’t read the original paper). wrt the implications of Godel’s Theorem, honestly it never shook me to my foundations or anything of that sort. It seems the mathematical equivalent of saying something like ‘this statement is false’, a statement which, if true is false, and vice versa. But maybe I lack the philosophical bent required to appreciate its profundity.

  38. wrt the implications of Godel’s Theorem, honestly it never shook me to my foundations or anything of that sort.

    It was a landmark in its time because it completely threw a wrench into the then prevailing dream of the goal of automated theorem proving for all possible statements in the world, specifically Hilbert’s program, by basically presenting the ultimate Cantor diagonalization argument.

  39. wrt the implications of Godel’s Theorem, honestly it never shook me to my foundations or anything of that sort. It was a landmark in its time because it completely threw a wrench into the then prevailing dream of the goal of automated theorem proving for all possible statements in the world, specifically Hilbert’s program, by basically presenting the ultimate Cantor diagonalization argument.

    Yes, I understand that. I just meant the deep implication assigned to it (as above), wrt god, the cosmos, etc.

  41. Yes, I understand that. I just meant the deep implication assigned to it (as above), wrt god, the cosmos, etc. Neither did Godel.

    :D. I suddenly feel smarter 😉 .

  42. “Direct quotes from Hitler’s magnum opus and his speeches are “unconvincing” to you but dubious second-hand accounts are very convincing? You realise how irrational this is? For a debunking of your false conclusions from the Table Talk read the following article. A small sample”

    Omygod. Hilarious–Your quoters really knew Hitler, but mine didn’t? thanks for the scoop. In any case, my evidence was not all personal quotes but policy and formal policy papers, including some papers currently held by Rutgers Law School. One more time: “In addition, Hitler declared Nazism the state religion and the Bible was replaced by Mein Kampf in the schools. You really want confusion? Randy Alley, one of my best WWII history sources, noted that the SS were supposedly forbidden to believe in God–yet the military’s belt buckles said “Gott mit uns” (“God is with us”)! See photo, below. (you have to go to the web site)”

    and No. I don’t believe Hitler’s magnus opus and speeches reflect his true feelings on Christianity any more than George Bush’s speeches reflect godliness and concern for human suffering. My quotes were from persons in close association with the man, over the years he was in power, including political and military associates and personal secretaries. Many of these people were in opposition The Germans were nothing if not good journal and record keepers.

    I provided a link to Rutgers Law School where papers taken from the Germans after WWII indicate a plan to destroy Christianity.

    You seem to think I am a Christian–actually I am not, but better scholars than you or I have researched the Hitler conundrum concerning religion, and generally speaking, unless they were rabidly atheist or confirmed religionists, their conclusions were far more similar to mine than to yours. But you are of course entitled to compose your own bouquet.

    As for me being a gullible conspiracy theorist, again, this is laughable. Yeah–I’m a “conspiracy theorist” because I’m not a fool or a dupe. I know who the truly gullible are. Or perhaps who the true deceivers are.

    Run along now. I don’t know how much I have in common with Random, but I must echo his sentiments: “Sathya, will you please go back to torturing, maybe some kids in your neighborhood, and leave me alone? I don’t like talking to you.”

  43. Re physics and mysticism. I think one reason many of the fathers of modern physics and quantum theory were attracted to Eastern thought is because they were aware of the representational limits of their own symbolic universe, besides which, it could not provide meaning, which is very important for our species. Schroedinger, one of the two fathers of Quantum Mechanics would never have claimed mysticism=physics as some New Agers claim, but he wrote rapturously about Upanishadic thought:

    “Knowledge, feeling, and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings. But not in this sense — that you are a part, a piece, of an eternal, infinite being, an aspect or modification of it… For we should then have the same baffling question: which part, which aspect are you? what, objectively, differentiates it from the others? No, but, inconceiveable as it seems to ordinary reason, you — and all other conscious beings as such — are all in all. Hence, this life of yours… is, in a certain sense, the whole… This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula… ‘Tat tvam asi’ — this is you. Or, again, in such words as ‘I am in the east and in the west, I am below and above, I am this whole world.’

    Thus you can throw yourself flat on the ground, stretched out upon Mother Earth, with certain conviction that you are one with her and she with you … For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.”

  44. 234 Reasoner

    Have people read Hitchens’ book on Teresa, and what are their opinions of his arguments?

    –> I read it 5 years back and was impressed, given I didnt know who Hitchens was at that time. Now that I know he is an atheist, it does cloud my recollection a bit. 🙂

    I think he also says a lot about how she let her insistence on proving the superiority of simple love and faith over modern medicine probably led to more suffering than was warranted for many of these lepers (of course, this begs the question of what their alternatives would have been in the absence of Teresa, and I don’t know that living a life on the streets of Calcutta while being shunned by everybody would have been better).

    –> To me, reading the book led to one question which I havent had a satisfactory answer yet. If Teresa is a paragon of love and faith, is backed by the church(evidently wealthy and powerful) and has good name recognition(She even got a Nobel), why is the state of those buildings run by her charities so bleak and rundown in pictures(I havent seen the actual buildings so I have had to base my question on pictures) ? If her faith led her to believe in the power of suffering and subsequently, to emphasize love and faith more than modern medicine in curing people who came to her, shouldnt she be held accountable ?

    Plus, it is difficult for me to accept the description of kolkata as it is generally provided in the story of teresa as miserable beyond repair and that a ‘foreign hand’ had to come in to serve them, ignoring charities which are doing their bit to help people(not the target segment of teresa’s charities though) there.

  45. “Teresa is a paragon of love and faith, is backed by the church(evidently wealthy and powerful) and has good name recognition(She even got a Nobel), why is the state of those buildings run by her charities so bleak and rundown in pictures(I havent seen the actual buildings so I have had to base my question on pictures) ?”

    Those are reasonable questions. But if you’ve ever been to St. Peter’s in the Vatican, that is pretty run down too, or at least the exterior is. Of course, there you’re talking about buildings half a millenium old.

  46. Those are reasonable questions. But if you’ve ever been to St. Peter’s in the Vatican, that is pretty run down too, or at least the exterior is.

    i thought that place was fabulous. didnt look run down to me. the churches looked like palaces.

  47. 245 chiming in

    Those are reasonable questions. But if you’ve ever been to St. Peter’s in the Vatican, that is pretty run down too, or at least the exterior is. Of course, there you’re talking about buildings half a millenium old.

    –> Last I checked, it is not the primary mission of St.Peter’s in the Vatican to provide charity to sick people who come there. Teresa’s mission is just that. Apples to oranges.

  48. anna -“…. it’s bizarre to hear those who are not Christian dissecting things like Christ’s crucifixion. I would never claim to grok what Krishna was telling Arjun.”

    wow!

    so heretofore, you will never write about any hindu, muslim, sikh, jew or buddhist or any country besides america, for that matter. also, since you are christian, you will never be able to understand [even if you obtain a phd in theology]the compulsions of another religion – you should never comment on honor killings of women or female infanticide, when the perpetrators are muslim or hindu.

    of course i am being cynical, but given the above statement…..

  49. “i thought that place was fabulous. didnt look run down to me. the churches looked like palaces.”

    yeah, well, I haven’t been there in a while. When I was there the stones were crumbling on the exterior, and half of Italy appeared to covered with scaffolding. If they’ve finished the rennovations, well done.

    ” –> Last I checked, it is not the primary mission of St.Peter’s in the Vatican to provide charity to sick people who come there. Teresa’s mission is just that. Apples to oranges.”

    I guess my point is more what the hell are they doing with all that money they’re supposed to have. If I had seen it going into sprucing up the main tourist attraction of Rome, at least there would be evidence. But according to Puliogre, St. Peter’s is looking good these days. No, I don’t know why they don’t rennovate Mother Teresa’s edifices. Maybe they need to be reminded.

  50. Puliogre, chiming in,

    If you’ve read thru Dr.Chatterjee’s book that Krishnan linked to earlier, the importance of Malcolm Muggeridge in this whole saga is quite clear. The book is well researched and is not a hate filled rant. At the very least, MT was a dogmatic catholic and constantly lied about the work her order was doing, post 1979. When she died I thought media had their priorities screwed up putting Diana on the same pedestal as her. Now I’m much more sympathetic to Diana.