(September 1, 2015 at 11:50 pm)IATIA Wrote: There seems to be a lot of confusion between chance, probabilities, possibilities, permutations, combinations, statistics and even causality. (and a lot of it is wrong) They are not interchangeable and really have nothing to do with the original query. (Except may perhaps causality and in that, the OP is ambiguous)
Back to the OP. "Does anyone agree that the existence of god is a 50/50 chance?"
My answer is no as should be yours. Again, the question is somewhat ambiguous, akin to "where are you when you jump off a bridge". 'In the air' is after you jump and 'on the bridge' is before you jump.
Anyway, let us try this again. A coin is flipped in the air. Before the coin lands, there is a 50/50 chance that it will be heads or tails. HOWEVER, once the coin lands (unseen at the moment) it is already heads or tails and there is only a 50/50 chance of choosing which way the coin has landed and no longer a 50/50 chance of which way it will land.
Before there was a god, there was a 50/50 chance (we will forget about any variables here for the dog and pony show) that it would come into being. Once the god has come into being (or not), it is no longer a question of if but rather which. There is not a 50/50 chance of there being a god (or not), only a 50/50 chance of choosing correctly.
This is based on no input except the question of choice. Now, once variables are put into place, god wrote the bible, logic prohibits a god, science has yet to prove there is a god, etc., then the 50/50 chance of choosing correctly changes.
There isn't a 50/50 chance to choose correctly, because, first, you cannot choose what you believe, and second it isn't is there a god or not a god. It is, if there is a god, which one. And that is out of the infinite amount of gods.
