What are the odds of God existing?

No, it's not. All effects have causes. The creation of the universe, if it happened, was an effect. Why are you so dead-set against what is obvious?

quote:

---

All effects have causes.

---

Possibly there are some things that have existed for only a finite amount of time that are not effects.--

quote:

---

The creation of the universe, if it happened, was an effect.

---

Unsupported assertian.-

quote:

---

Why are you so dead-set against what is obvious?

---

I don't believe that I am.First, I don't find it at all obvious that the universe must have had a cause, even if it has only existed for a finite amount of time.Second, pointing out that an assumption might be wrong is not "being dead-set against it".

---

"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)

Yeah, right. And maybe the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is not equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides (or however that goes).

If General Relativity is correct, then, yes, in the real universe the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is going to be ever so slightly different from the sum of the squares of the other two sides; in fact, a proposed test for GR is to send several spacecraft containing laser interferometers to various parts of the solar system to make a big triangle with the sun in its interior, and then measure the slight differences in the trigonometric properties from what would be predicted from Euclidean assumptions.

---

"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)

I find that very very odd, and I don't understand why anybody is defending it. But I also find very very odd the idea that the universe has always existed.

Why?

Just because it needs a cause. I don't know why it needs a cause, but it seems to need a cause. I can't wrap my mind around matter existing forever. I suppose it's my own mental inadequacy. Of course I have a bigger problem wrapping my mind around the arguments for its starting to exist in time without a cause.

Hello, Faith.As for myself, I don't have much trouble in imagining either something that has existed forever, or imagining something that began to exist without a cause. That's not to say that such things actually exist in reality, just that I can imagine them.However, as much as I don't quite understand why other people have trouble with these concepts, I have to recognize that some people do. Even some of the people on this thread who are claiming that such things are possible seem to admit they have trouble with these concepts themselves. So I wouldn't call it "mental inadequacy".In fact, I seem to recall that you were hip to the idea of an absolute standard of morality while I have trouble grasping how such a thing is possible. Off-topic here, but just an observation that there seem to be concepts that you can imagine that I cannot.

---

"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)

Indeed,As you have agreed that we (currently) have no way of knowing exactly what happened at the instant the universe came into existence, or indeed what was even possible at the point the universe came into existence, we now move on to the problem of identifying the odds for one particular causal event from an unknowable phase-space of all possible causal events.We have no way of knowing how to filter this phase-space of possibilities, we don’t even know how big that phase-space is, so we have to assume that it is infinite. As is the case when ”anything’ could be true.As any one path through that unknowable infinite phase-space is ”one in infinity’ (at least) then the odds for any one event being the start of the universe (God, Spontaneous Creation, Bunnies, Last Tuesday, this thread) are so close to zero as to be not worth counting.So if you truly want to hang God’s existence on the probability that he created the universe then you have gone from 50% to virtually 0%. (There is still a possibility that it was God but that possibility is infinitely small)

Well but let's straighten out this term "imagine" in case the problem is here. I thought I corrected myself and was avoiding the word, but let me correct it now: I simply mean if I can imagine it, that it seems logical to me.I don't mean just that I can conjure up the idea. I can in fact conjure up the idea of all kinds of things materializing out of nothing with a "poof," just as I can imagine pink grass and grass green skies and flying pigs. I just can't think of them as logically existing in reality. Same with all the matter in the universe suddenly materializing out of absolute nothingness with a great "poof" - I can imagine it -- I've got a pretty vivid imagination -- but I can't see how it could happen logically.Maybe you mean it in the same sense, but I can't tell from what you've said. I may have a different kind of "trouble" with it than you may think I do, I'm not sure. But I certainly can't follow all the abstruse scientific ideas about the fourth dimension and time versus eternity if they have anything to do with it.About an absolute standard of morality, I don't recall thinking it possible to arrive at such a standard, in fact the opposite. Efforts to do that always fail. But I do believe that God's universe comes equipped with such an absolute moral law, because I believe the Bible. It's not the same thing as being able to imagine it or finding the idea logical, I simply understand that it exists and now expect it to be operating at all times despite the fact that humanity is at odds with it.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 10:00 PM

If you consider the source of the configuration of these odds---human wisdom---and realize that in this vast universe, humans are only 100% known to be on ONE dustspeck of a planet in one solar system in one galaxy of 100 billion stars out of 100 billion galaxies---that shifts your "odds" back the other way IMHO.How audacious of us to imagine ourselves the source of wisdom and the source of accurate probabilities!

quote:

---

Well but let's straighten out this term "imagine" in case the problem is here.

---

Maybe "imagine" is the wrong word to use, but your explanation of what you meant is what I meant, too.-

quote:

---

About an absolute standard of morality, I don't recall thinking it possible to arrive at such a standard, in fact the opposite.

---

I wasn't referring to "arriving at a standard", but whether such a standard can even exist. To me, that seems "illogical".

---

"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)

Where do virtual particles come from then?

And so on. What do we know, when we are so small and insignificant? Yes?Just because you don’t like the result of simple logic (Especially when it’s applied to the lack of human knowledge in this area) there is no need resort to what amounts to an ad hominem (you cant be right, cause what do us humans know?) You were apparently quite happy to accept fallible, insignificant human wisdom when it was suggested that the odds of God’s existence was 50/50.ABE- to avoid simply making an ad hominem, in retaliation.All I was saying is that we cant say for certain what happened when the universe came into existence, nor can we exclude anything because we are even unsure that reality worked the same way. Because of that we have to accept that ”anything” could have happened. That ”anything’ even out strips our ability to conceive the full depth and breadth of the full set of possibilities, in short we have to consider the number of possible events to be infinite. And that is precisely because we don’t know enough to even begin reducing them down.It is because we, by necessity, are dealing with an infinite list of possibilities that the odds of any of them being the ”one’ is next to zero. Each as likely as the next. Each as improbable as the last.The OP was discussing the odds of God’s existence by equating that to the odds that he was the cause of the universe.If that argument holds (ie if he created the universe he exists, if he didn’t then he doesn’t exist) then that means the probability of God’s existence has to be virtually nill. If you simply asked, “does God Exit?” then it’s a simple binary state: either he does, or he does not. That’s your 50/50.This message has been edited by ohnhai, 29-04-2006 03:50 PM

I should have been more specific but the question "What are the odds of God existing?" wasn't in the post I responded to.I should have specified the questions I think are of interest to me: "Is it possible that GOD is some as of yet not understood aspect of the universe?" is very interesting to me.Robin's probabilities aren't of interest to me but the question of consciousness creating the universe or the universe creating consciousness is of great interest to me.Thinking about something always existing vs coming into being is the sort of thing I can't resolve but my mind is on occassion drawn to think about it. It seems that though at present it's unresolvable it hints at a mystery fundamental to the universe.I don't assume anyone else is interested in this but yes it seems non trivial to me.lfen