I was just talking with my daughter and her friend (both 11th grade) about pi and how surprising it is that the relationship between circles and lines didn't come out to a less irrational number. I mean, everything else in math and computers seems to come down to 0, 1, or 2x so 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 und so weiter seems kind of like a test to see whether or not you'll buy it and therefore everything else the teacher's going to feed you the rest of the year.
Then I decided to offer this: Pi makes no sense if you start from the point of wondering why there's pi. If you start from the point that there has to be a number that mathematically relates lines to the size of a circle then you have reasoned correctly that there is one. And just to reward you with a bit of consistency that math is so good at, that number is the same, whether you're looking for circumference, area, or volume. It's just weird.
And then I said that this explanation is a lot like the existence of God. If you decide to start with someone's idea of God and test to see if it makes sense, it's pretty easy to punch holes in the definition. But at the same time, at least there was a lot of thought that went into someone's answer to the biggest question(s) in the universe. That's at least deserving of respect, if not belief.
On the other hand, if you start from the point that there's power in the universe greater than what we already understand, you'd have to be either an idiot or imagination-constricted to claim that there is not. The entire premise of the scientific method is that there are ways to approach defining new things that we didn't already know. Of course, the limitation of the scientific method is that it fails if it cannot rely on consistency.
So therefore the question of God is not whether or not power greater than us exists, it's a question of how tightly we feel comfortable defining it, or at least part of it. And like pi, it probably is not a simple number or formula. It's more like an irrational number.
Boom! I've had one epiphany today. I can just go get lit now... it's Saturday.
I checked back with the kids to see what they thought about that. And I got another one of those reminders that some things in life are still as simple as 0, 1, or 2x. And it's that even a good and polite 11th grader knows that saying "Yes" and otherwise staying quiet is pretty good cover for thinking about something else entirely.
Full disclosure: I stole this idea about defining God by deduction from a C.S. Lewis book my old girlfriend Nancy (the Baptist) asked me to read. But I claim credit for the analogy to pi!
