Religion-Science Philosophy articles series
Philosophy is supposed to be the realm of free thinking. You are supposed to think on your own, without being influenced by dogmas. And even if you are based on some axioms in order to think, you should at least recognize that and be aware of it. In order to do that one oftenly relies on bibliographical sources. The selection of these sources is vital for the ones understanding of a subject and for the formulation of his own thoughts. Good sources are a prerequisite for good philosophy. And this cannot happen with Wikipedia.
Wikipedia has becoming more and more the prime source of information. However since Wikipedia is considered mainstream, it will present mainly the mainstream opinions on subjects. This is why we must always be very careful when reading articles from that online encyclopedia. In the sector of Philosophy, most of the related Wikipedia articles are influenced by modern materialistic-atheistic dogmas which have flooded todays thinking. But these dogmas are becoming old and have worn off. In that sense, it is of the uttermost importance to understand that the articles from such a mainstrem source of information is not to be completely trusted. Most of the posts from that encyclopedia are written by people with specific bias. The purpose of this article is to present some examples so that the readers are aware of this situation.
Some examples of Wikipedia articles which are biased towards an atheistic-materialistic worldview are presented below:
1. Articles about God, Theism and Atheism
The article about God [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God] is almost half than the article about Atheism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism]. This is not coincidence. How can an article about an entity that was to exist for more than 3,000 years be half than the article about atheism, which mostly covers the modern years of that philosophy? Moreover, the article about God has some scarce references to “arguments in favour of God”, while stating that the definition of God has many problems. On the other hand, the same article has a mainly theological character and leaves completely untouched any philosophy related to the being called “God”. The whole page is around the theology aspect of “God” and nothing on the philosophical aspect. Nothing about Aristotle and his logic who dictated that a First Mover existed… Nothing about Godel and his proof of God… Nothing (but a
small phrase) on Collins or other modern scientists who are theists… The same applies to the site about the “Existence of God” [Arguments for the Existence of God], which lists arguments for and against the existence of God. Again, no mention of Godel. No mention of Aristotle by name (with the exception of a note at the end). Again, all arguments of Atheists are characterized as “Empirical”, “Inductive” or “Deductive”, while the main arguments in favour of God are not characterized at all (leaving the reader to understand that they are NOT empirical for example, even though they include arguments like the argument that is based on the fact that the Universe is fine-tuned for life. Isn’t that empirical?)…
Moreover, are the “contradictions between scriptures of different religions” really a philosophical argument? And an empirical one? Wow… Too much… Especially if you see that the argument “from Design” that is FOR the existence of God is not under an “Empirical arguments” category, while the related argument “from poor Design” is under a very nice BOLD title “Empirical arguments”… The Conclusions of the article are again based on “modern” religions and nothing is mentioned about others – e.g. the “logical and free thinking” ancient Greeks – who also believed a deity existed. Many more details like these can be discovered if one reads side-by-side the articles in favour and against the idea of a God. Try for example to compare the size of the “Theism” article [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism] with the size of the “Atheism” article… We are talking for a ration about 3:23… Small details which are not so small, when they are implanted into the readers brain without him knowing it… An unbiased article is not so difficult to write. IF you are unbiased…
2. Article about “Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche”
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche]
The philosophy of Nietzsche is presented in a very simple way as atheistic, while many philosophers have interpreted his main characteristic mainly as “against the mainstream thinking” or as “undogmatic” and not as “atheist”. This may sound strange to a person not very familiar with philosophy, but it is important to understand that the philosopher Nietzsche was against Christianism not because he did not agree with it but mainly because he saw that its philosophy failed to solve the problems of the world. In the same way, Nietzsche proclames that “God is dead” not as a celebration, but mainly as a warning that now men will try to replace him (see Papanoutsos interpretation). And he was write. Finally, Nietzsche’s greatest concern was nihilism (see the Notes of Nietzsche), which the main characteristic of todays “cold” era of “calculative” science. However in the very beginning of the article Nietszsche is presented as somewhat “acceptable” while the notes of the philosopher indicate that he was very hostile towards that type of philosophical thinking. This is not something only Heidegger said, as Wikipedia tries to convince us [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism]. Instead it is something Nietzsche himself writes plainly in his note diaries. Nothing in the thought of Nietzsche was “simple”. And that is why the “sumarritative” way in which the “encyclopedia” presents the views of Nietzsche is not only suspicious but mainly against the very essense of philosophy and surely against the very way Nietzsche was thinking…
3. Article about Godel’s proof of God
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_ontological_proof]
First of all the proof is not mentioned in simple words (a very weird case for the Wikipedia which is a specialist in that), but in actual mathematical symbols with no explanation! This drives the reader to go away from the page (except the patient ones who will search an explanation of the proof somewhere else). What is much
more interesting is that the page was not always so difficult to read. Once upon a time the page explained the prooof in a simple manner, in simple English (along with the mathematical symbols). However newer versions have left only the symbols… The criticism mentioned there is not a mathematical criticism of the proof itself. It is only a list of general criticisms made by people before Godel. Only one criticism on Godel’s proof exists, but no mention to other paper of mathematicians who support Godel’s proof.
— Older version of the article – START —
For historical purposes, here is how the old more explanatory text of Wikipedia looked like:
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del’s_ontological_proof)
[edit] Axioms
We first assume the following axiom:
Axiom 1: It is possible to single out positive properties from among all properties. Gοdel defines a positive property rather vaguely: “Positive means positive in the moral aesthetic sense (independently of the accidental structure of the world)… It may also mean pure attribution as opposed to privation (or containing privation).”
(Gοdel 1995)
We then assume that the following three conditions hold for all positive properties (which can be summarized by saying “the positive properties form an ultrafilter”):
Axiom 2: If P is positive and P entails Q, then Q is positive.
Axiom 3: If P1, P2, P3, …, Pn are positive properties, then the property (P1 AND P2 AND P3 … AND Pn) is positive as well.
Axiom 4: If P is a property, then either P or its negation is positive, but not both.
Finally, we assume:
Axiom 5: Necessary existence is a positive property (Pos(NE)). This mirrors the key assumption in Anselm’s argument.
Now we define a new property G: if x is an object in some possible world, then G(x) is true if and only if P(x) is true in that same world for all positive properties P. G is called the “God-like” property. An object x that has the God-like property is called God.
[edit] Derivation
From axioms 1 through 4, Gοdel argued that in some possible world there exists God. He used a sort of modal plenitude principle to argue this from the logical consistency of Godlikeness. Note that this property is itself positive, since it is the conjunction of the (infinitely many) positive properties.
Then, Gοdel defined essences: if x is an object in some world, then the property P is said to be an essence of x if P(x) is true in that world and if P entails all other properties that x has in that world. We also say that x necessarily exists if for every essence P the following is true: in every possible world, there is an element y with P(y).
Since necessary existence is positive, it must follow from Godlikeness. Moreover, Godlikeness is an essence of God, since it entails all positive properties, and any nonpositive property is the negation of some positive property, so God cannot have any nonpositive properties. Since any Godlike object is necessarily existent, it
follows that any Godlike object in one world is a Godlike object in all worlds, by the definition of necessary existence. Given the existence of a Godlike object in one world, proven above, we may conclude that there is a Godlike object in every possible world, as required.
From these hypotheses, it is also possible to prove that there is only one God in each world: by identity of indiscernibles, no two distinct objects can have precisely the same properties, and so there can only be one object in each world that possesses property G. Gοdel did not attempt to do so however, as he purposely limited his proof to the issue of existence, rather than uniqueness. This was more to preserve the logical precision of the argument than due to a penchant for polytheism. This uniqueness proof will only work if one supposes that the
positiveness of a property is independent of the object to which it is applied, a claim which some have considered to be suspect.
— Older version of the article – END —
4. Article about Speciation
It does not stress the problem of species definition in the articles related to evolution theory. The generation of a fruit fly with different colour is enough for Wikipedia to claim the creation of “new species”. My articles for Evolution and Intelligent Design have more examples of speciation than Wikipedia. This shows how Wikipedia treats many difficult and complicated issues as being simple and “already solved”. The fact that most of them are related to difficult philosophical questions (e.g. existence of God, defintion of Species etc), makes this way of
thinking most disturbing and surely does subtract credibility points…
5. Article about Poincare
It does not mention that Henry Poincare was a pro-Intuitionism philosopher and mathematician. It seems that it is dangerous for the dogma of “correct thinking” of our era to show that one of the greatest mathematicians was based on intuition in order to formulate new revolutionary theories… Logic is our God. And we must all obey…
6. Article on Wittgenstein
The article presents Wittgenstein as a materialist which is simply not the case. The article refers to Tractatus and how it was used by logical positivists of the Circle of Vienna. But it does not pay too much interest on the great objections Wittgenstein had for his use of work by those fellows (it only mentions that Wittgenstein ” disagreed with some of their interpretation of his work” – not that he did not attend any of their sessions!). The article mentions how the philosopher talked about the boundaries of language (and the things we cannot talk about) and how he abandoned the epistemological idealism for Gottlob Frege’s conceptual realism. But it does not offer any reference to the fact that Wittgenstein thought that the things which we cannot talk about are the ones which are the most important ones! Again, small ommisions, small things implied and there it goes: a completely different aura hanging over the name “Wittgenstein”.
7. Article on Douglas Hofstadter
The article presented the professor as being very interested with Artificial Intelligence. However the professor has said that the article is full of inaccuracies and that he has no interest in computers!!! (New York Times interview, 2007) Fortunately this is one of the very few cases where the article HAS been corrected [as of 21/8/2012 when I last checked] !! (maybe due to the high profile of the professor and the intensity of his remark – too bad Wittgenstein is not around to corrent his article too…)
8. Article on Cult of Reason
The Wikipedia referring to the Cult of Reason (Culte de la Raison) does not mention the many deaths which the result of the “revolution” of “Logic”. Too messy to be mentioned in an article for the dominance of Logic over “superstition”. We should not of course learn anything cruel conducted by people loving reason as their God…
9. Double slit experiment: The case of the observer affecting the observed. (The measurement problem)
The poison of materialism (and dogmatism) has also affected the field of quantum mechanics in Wikipedia. As it is well known, the observation during the two slit experiment causes the wavefunction to collapse and – thus – leads to lack of wave interference. In the same way many other experiments show that the (conscious) observer causes the wavefunction to collapse to a specific state. The measurement problem or else the observation problem in quantum mechanics is something widely known and heavily discussed among scientists and philosophers alike. The cat seems to be both dead and alive until an observer observes it. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 , 12)
However, even though the role of the conscious observer is something so heavily discussed and – potentially – one of the greatest implications of quantum mechanics in our understanding of the cosmos and how the immaterial can affect the material, this is not even mentioned in the Double Slit Experiment page of Wikipedia!!! As it can be seen in the following pictures, there are some people who attempted to mention the role of the observer in the collapse of the wavefunction, but their contributions were blatantly deleted by other contributors almost the instant they were made!
The dogmatism of materialism affects everything. And the most prone to this effect are the mindless uneducated masses which edit Wikipedia on their abundant free time…
Be careful what you read.
Whole electrons might vanish (or appear) because of that…
The Real Danger…
Of course this is not the end. The catalogue is just indicative. And perhaps the most dangerous part of Wikipedia Inquisition are not the things it writes about but the things it DOES NOT even mention! The article on the Cult of Reason (see above) is a good example. Take another good example with William S. Lyon. Look for him in the “great encyclopedia”. You will find nothing there…
Conclusion
As someone nicely wrote, Wikipedia is the Tyranny of the Unemployed – people with nothing to do and little knowledge who just sit all day along editing and re-editing articles on an “encyclopedia” to fit their agenda and personal interests. We must always remember that the history is written by the winners. And currently the “winners” are the hardcore materialists who believe in nothing more than dust and machines. Let us not make the mistake of listening only to them.
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