What are the odds of God existing?

Why?
With what evidence do you support your claim?
Can you look at the very instant this universe came into being and define the working physical laws that were operating in that instant. If you can then you will have out done the entirety of Science as even the latest Math and predictions fail at the last few fractions of a second after the big-bang.With those laws defined can you then prove that there was no way for matter and energy to be spontaneously created? No you can’t because we can’t. We simply don’t know how the universe actually worked in it’s first few moments, and certainly we have less idea what happened before then (even if ”Before’ has any meaning)It’s odds on that ”reality’ was very different in those first few moments and if so how can we possibly know what was and wasn’t possible?

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)

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 was using Eric to Paraphrase Phat.But to answer your point more directly. How can you be so sure earth is the only life bearing planet out there? No it was squarely aimed at Phat.It is obvious he didn’t like the fact I gave the probability of God’s existence as virtually nill (based on the sole question ”Did God create the universe?) but rather than address the logic and rational behind my probability, he attacks me by asserting that I had neither the wit or the authority to make such a claim (by asserting this for the entire human race). Then in a true show of hypocritical audacity, and separating himself off from the rest of us humans, he asserts his preferred probability.As far as I’m concerned, that can’t be considered good form.