What are the odds of God existing?

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There are other factors we can consider in regard to your chances of death (your health, etc.). But if we consider the fact of creation only, there are no other factors to consider.

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The last sentence is tautologous. If we consider only one factor then naturally we cannot consider any others. But we can apply this principle to other examples - including the one you object to. And of course, even if you could argue that there were no other factors that could be considered it would still not make it valid to conclude that the probability was 0.5.

Why not?

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

It certainly does revert to option #1. If you want to posit a demi-God created by an eternal being, that's fine with me. I suppose this demi-god would be the eternal Being's agent or something--a silly idea, but you're welcome to it.

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God does not "exist."---Paul Tillich, Christian theologian

There's nothing to make anything happen.

Why does something that happens need something to make it happen?

But of course if it is equivalent to option 1 it can't also be equivalent to option 2 as you claimed. And it still contradicts Option 1 as it was written in the OP. So the point that your list in the OP was not exhaustive stands.But here's an alternative schemaA The universe exists contingently
A' The universe exists necessarilyAccording to your argument the probability of each of these is 0.5If and only if A' is true:B The universe had a natural cause
B' The universe had a supernatural causeAnd the conditional probability of each of these given A' is 0.5If and only if B' is true:C The supernatural cause of the universe was not a God
C' The supernatural cause of the universe was a GodAnd the conditional probability of each of these given B' is 0.5The probability of C' being true is p(A') * p(B') * p(C')By your method of assigning probabilities this is 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.125Since 0.5 != 0.125 your method of assigning probabilities is shown to be invalid by reductio.

You are committing the logical fallacy known as The Fallacy of Composition; just because objects in the universe have causes in no way implies that the universe itself has a cause.In any cases if the universe has a beginning point, it is probably incoherant to talk about anything having caused it, or anything being before it or it coming from anything because all of these terms are inextricably linked to the concept of time, and time is itself a feature of the universe (the whole space-time thingy).The rest of your argument is pure probabilistic ignorance: the probability of an event is entirely independent of the number of possible outcomes. Just because there were two possibilities (which there aren't) does not in any way imply that they have to be equal. To illustrate this let me give an example:Throw a glass out of a second story window onto the ground below, there are two possibilities: the glass either shatters or it doesn't - which do you think is more likely?

"temporally" - pertaining to time, as opposed to
"spatially" - pertaining to spaceperhaps confused with"temporarily" - not for all time.This message has been edited by cavediver, 04-28-2006 09:17 AM

ok
A, your 50/50 odds are wrong as you have no measure of how likley 1. is compared to 2. it may be eternal beings are very comman , so our universe could have been created by one of a zillions different eternal beings floating in the what ever .. may be all universes as so created then your odds are 100/0 .. or may be there are no eternal beings then your odds are 0/100you say in number 2. the universe has always existed .. how would you measuer this .. existance is a term about time , but time is a very odd thing dimetionally speaking and you can come up with so odd models of how thing could happen .. which can lead to the question is there a always for the universe to have exsisted in ??and if you add the .." in some form " .. how far from the current state of the universe will you go and still claim it to be the same thing ?? ... ie if the universe collasped or was reduced into nothing .....say by a intelligent race finding a way to destroy it ??????

Responding to how the discussion has developed to this point, it seems to me that the idea of the universe's always existing isn't any more reasonable an idea than that it came into existence out of nothing at some point. They are equally incomprehensible ideas.I think someone could say that as long as a self-existent or self-created material universe is a possibility at all then a Creator is not a necessary idea at all. There is no need to consider a Creator in other words. We can't see this Creator. We have no evidence that any such Being ever existed, but we know that the universe exists, matter exists.{abe: Or, as others have been suggesting, the odds aren't 50/50 as long as there is this intrinsic unlikelihood of the existence of a Creator.}So how do you justify positing an eternal Being at all?This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 08:50 AM

I agree, but is the reason for believing in God simply based upon a perceived necessity for a creator?This message has been edited by cavediver, 04-28-2006 09:03 AM

Does that apply to God also? In other words: is the idea of an eternal God unreasonable as well? How do you?

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

No, but we're not talking about reasons for believing in God, are we? My belief in God is completely unrelated to such questions.I'm simply trying to grasp this problem logically, and while I think Robin is right basically that all existence does come down to only two factors, Being and Things or Matter or Stuff or however that should be put, as I thought about it, it seemed to me that the possibility of a Creator isn't equal to the possibility of a self-existent universe, just based on what we know from our own senses.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 09:24 AM

I think I answered that by saying that there is no real evidence for an eternal Being as there is for the existence of things/stuff/matter/universe.{abe: Or, in other words, of course the idea is equally unreasonable in this context} I mean in the context of this logical problem. I don't posit an eternal Being in this context. I have other reasons and evidence for my belief in God.That is, I KNOW there is an eternal Being that made it all, but I START there. Robin on the other hand is trying to determine from scratch as it were whether there is an eternal Being or only the universe.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 09:30 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 09:33 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 09:33 AM

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I don't posit an eternal Being in this context. I have other reasons and evidence for my belief in God.

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That is, I KNOW there is an eternal Being that made it all, but I START there.

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Probably the best response I have ever seen to that question.

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"Religion is the best business to be in. It's the only one where the customers blame themselves for product failure."
-- Ellis Weiner (quoted on the NAiG message board)