This story in this morning’s New York Post caught my eye.
He’s developed a scientific theory to prove God’s existence, but a wealthy Upper East Side man can’t figure out what happened to his $200,000 donation to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
Richard Sills — an eccentric educator/scientist/poet who has run for president — has filed suit against the Great Communicator’s foundation for allegedly keeping him in the dark about what it’s doing with his money …
Sills, a computer scientist, offers up his scientific proof of God based on what he calls, “The Law of Opposites.” He concludes since there’s no evidence of God’s existence, God must exist.
Well, that seems to me like a promising approach. Who is Richard Sills, though? For a guy who’s run for president, he’s left a remarkably thin trail. All I could find on a quick google was this:
On Wednesday June 6, 2001, the back page of the Business Day section of The New York Times was devoted to Richard Sills’ “A Scientific Proof of The Existence of God” …
I’m sure the businesspersons of New York found that very improving. But who is the guy?
Think of it as Poe’s Law in action.
Clearly, under the “Law of Opposites,” since we know next to nothing about him, that is all that there is to know.
Of course, this is bad logic.
Since there is no evidence that Sills is a mass murderer, it follows Sills must be a mass murderer.
Since there is no evidence that Sills died at birth, it follows Sills must have died at birth.
(The link to the NY Post article seems to be broken.)
Hardly the first person to present this “proof” of a wholly irrelevant “God”.
“He concludes since there’s no evidence of God’s existence, God must exist.”
That sounds like the inverse of the argument given in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t though of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
Sorry, link now fixed.
Hell–you’re all so intent on being funny that the real point just slips by. Clearly, we know so little about Sills. And not a damn thing about God. Sills is God-like, maybe even the same. It’s probably up on Wikipedia, like everything else (so it’s probably not worth knowing anything about). Maybe.