An important question to ask when considering the existence of God

SamuelTP1977

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It doesn't matter what particular people were born. I was born by 'chance'. If I weren't born someone else would ask the same question.



I'm not sure what the point is...?

About my earlier paragraph on discussing the circular argument that God created the universe. I believe my point is that if God didn't do it, then we are a product of natural processes, but if you consider the kinds of odds that would play out for that to happen, and you can get a feel for it too even though we cannot calculate the odds exactly. However,if it were natural processes then the kind of odds that would play out for existence to come into being then we can't really rule out the divinity of Jesus Christ.

I look at this problem as a statistician working for an insurance company or an actuary working for an insurance industry. Say for example somebody bought a life insurance policy for one million dollars and a week later one of his relatives reported that the person who bought the life insurance policy died in a fiery crash in Mexico and the body was cremated. The odds are way in the favor of viewing this insurance claim as suspicious to the point of I just doubt it. Yes, it can happen but I definitely would suspect fraud here which can threaten the solvency of the company.

Yes, we can't calculate the odds for existence to come to pass, but like I said we can get a feel for how totally astronomical it would have to be, leaving a lot to conjecture. For example 14 billion years ago a singularity blew up and started making hydrogen, helium and lithium for no apparent reason and 9 billion years later you get this solar nebula for the sun to form in and make the Earth with all the chemicals just right for life, that is astronomical it really is. Furthermore after another 600 million years a DNA molecule formed which was the common ancestor to everything with a DNA molecule and DNA kept replicating for 4 billion years without being totally wiped out by an asteroid or other disaster.

Also, you do have to wonder what was going on 15 billion years ago or a trillion years ago, answers to which we will never know, but you can have faith in the human condition. Religion is there if you need it. I do pray for you and all other nonbelievers may God forgive all of our confusion and judge us on how we lived our lives not what we happen to believe at the time of our death.

So what are your thoughts on this?
 
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Paradoxum

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You were doing something under God's permission.

I was doing stuff I don't remember before I was born?

Why you? Because it was you, and you wanted to be you, as a human, on the earth.

You think people are born as blank slates and I chose to be the way I am? Existing would seem to go against that.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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LOL!! How did I know that would be the next question posed? :rolleyes: (Philo thinks to himself: "...maybe,...maybe i AM psychic, after all!")

Well, just for grins and giggles, let's assume that the text was written before the 2nd Temple was dismantled by the Romans. It will at least make a good thought experiment.

(In some sense, all it really comes down to is whether Jesus did in fact accurately prognosticate about the fate of the 2nd Temple. Whether the Gospels were written before or after the fact of the 2nd Temple isn't something that I think establishes or disestablishes the other issue of whether Jesus in fact said these things. The problem is, as I'm sure you already know, that no one can hop into a time-machine and go back and find out if Jesus did in fact say these things about the 2nd Temple. So, since we're all in the same boat on this aspect of it, I won't spend useless time trying to defend whether the Gospels were written before or after 70 AD.)

:cool:
2PhiloVoid
OK, I'll take that as a 'don't know', and the example as hypothetical.
 
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Paradoxum

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About my earlier paragraph on discussing the circular argument that God created the universe. I believe my point is that if God didn't do it, then we are a product of natural processes, but if you consider the kinds of odds that would play out for that to happen, and you can get a feel for it too even though we cannot calculate the odds exactly. However,if it were natural processes then the kind of odds that would play out for existence to come into being then we can't really rule out the divinity of Jesus Christ.

The odds of life on Earth aren't bad because there are billions planets. We are just one that life is one.

There could be other universes too.

I look at this problem as a statistician working for an insurance company or an actuary working for an insurance industry. Say for example somebody bought a life insurance policy for one million dollars and a week later one of his relatives reported that the person who bought the life insurance policy died in a fiery crash in Mexico and the body was cremated. The odds are way in the favor of viewing this insurance claim as suspicious to the point of I just doubt it. Yes, it can happen but I definitely would suspect fraud here which can threaten the solvency of the company.

Yes, we can't calculate the odds for existence to come to pass, but like I said we can get a feel for how totally astronomical it would have to be, leaving a lot to conjecture. For example 14 billion years ago a singularity blew up and started making hydrogen, helium and lithium for no apparent reason

It expanded for no reason, or it created the elements for no reason? The elements definitely have a reason.

I'd say the singularity wasn't sitting there for years, then exploded. It suspect expanded right away. The expansion was the nature of what it was. (Time probably began with the expansion).

and 9 billion years later you get this solar nebula for the sun to form in and make the Earth with all the chemicals just right for life, that is astronomical it really is.

There are billions of stars... it's not strange for some to be good for life. Like it's not strange that someone wins the lottery... someone will.

Furthermore after another 600 million years a DNA molecule formed which was the common ancestor to everything with a DNA molecule and DNA kept replicating for 4 billion years without being totally wiped out by an asteroid or other disaster.

I'm not sure why that's strange. Asteroids have hit before and not killed everything.

Also, you do have to wonder what was going on 15 billion years ago or a trillion years ago, answers to which we will never know, but you can have faith in the human condition.

I'd say nothing probably happened before the Big Bang. There was nothing then... no space nor no time. Nothing happened then, because there was no 'then'.

So what are your thoughts on this?

The above :)
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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It doesn't matter what particular people were born. I was born by 'chance'. If I weren't born someone else would ask the same question.

I'm not sure what the point is...?
This is just the Lottery Fallacy, a probability version of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy - pick one event or sequence of events out of many, after the fact, and ask what are the chances of them happening. If you specify the event or sequence of events before the fact, i.e. before they happen, it is a reasonable question to ask; to do so after the fact is not.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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You think people are born as blank slates and I chose to be the way I am? Existing would seem to go against that.
It's quite an existentialist idea - that our choices make us who we are and identify what we value...

However, if we truly start as a blank slate, we have no basis for choice - only the environment can make us who we become.
 
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Paradoxum

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This is just the Lottery Fallacy, a probability version of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy - pick one event or sequence of events out of many, after the fact, and ask what are the chances of them happening. If you specify the event or sequence of events before the fact, i.e. before they happen, it is a reasonable question to ask; to do so after the fact is not.

I think you mean to be replying to the person I'm replying to.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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OK, I'll take that as a 'don't know', and the example as hypothetical.

Yep! I don't know; neither does anyone else. :cool: But, if Jesus DID say these things before the destruction in AD 70, regardless of whether the Gospels were written before or after the said destruction, then the odds would have been very interesting to see play out ...
 
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juvenissun

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I was doing stuff I don't remember before I was born?

You think people are born as blank slates and I chose to be the way I am? Existing would seem to go against that.

That is exactly what I think. There is no other way to think of it (the theology precludes other options).

Why does the "existing" go against the idea?
 
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ScottA

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This is an age old debate that really only has one answer: As long as the subject is not physical, no physical science or study will ever produce anything; and not being physical, the evidence remains unattainable to those who are only physical themselves.

The circumstance is not unlike having to take someone else's word for anything that is otherwise unattainable - you either do or you don't, and you either appreciate their willingness to share, or you don't.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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The circumstance is not unlike having to take someone else's word for anything that is otherwise unattainable - you either do or you don't, and you either appreciate their willingness to share, or you don't.
I appreciate cool stories, but as Hume said, "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence".
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Yep! I don't know; neither does anyone else. :cool: But, if Jesus DID say these things before the destruction in AD 70, regardless of whether the Gospels were written before or after the said destruction, then the odds would have been very interesting to see play out ...
You'd have to account for the possibility of a self-fulfilling prophecy, e.g. fulfilled by someone aware of it and keen to play the role of an instrument of God...
 
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ScottA

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I appreciate cool stories, but as Hume said, "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence".
And yet...that does not pertain, because the evidence is of the nature of the Subject, and not of the nature of the seeker.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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You'd have to account for the possibility of a self-fulfilling prophecy, e.g. fulfilled by someone aware of it and keen to play the role of an instrument of God...

Of course, we could "say" it might have been a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the other hand, simply saying "self-fulfilling prophecy" could be a cop-out for someone who wants to be alleviated from having to do the hard work of trying to consider the various possibilities---not that that's what you're doing with this, of course.

I don't know: which is easier? To say it was "self-fulfilling prophecy," or to keep one's mind open to the possibility that Jesus might actually have beaten the odds. Of course, if you mean to imply that some of those 1st century Jews in and around Jerusalem were a rascally bunch and were perhaps destined to bring Rome down on their heads, well...what are the odds that you'd be right? Who knows? ;)

2PhiloVoid
 
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I appreciate cool stories, but as Hume said, "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence".

Yeah...he thought evidence comes to us in "bundles," too ... Go figure. :cool:
 
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