Gallowglass

The surface area of God considered as a downhill motor race

Matthew Yglesias states that “I don’t think we debate God’s existence within anything like a formal system.” Like Brad DeLong on an earlier Yglesias argument (see this post), I beg to differ, and invoke the authority of renowned pataphysician Alfred Jarry’s Gestes et opinions de Dr. Faustroll, pataphysicien. Jarry starts by defending the supposition that God may be considered to have the shape of three straight lines of length a, emanating from the same point, and having 120 degrees between them. He then goes on to perform a series of algebraical operations, that both provide support for prevalent beliefs about the nature of the Holy Trinity, and culminate in a proof that +/- God is the shortest distance between zero and infinity, in either direction. Which is about as formal as Matthew (or Kurt Godel for that matter) could ask for. Quod erat demonstratum, as they say.