As a 'believer' I hear a lot of arguments for the existence of God based on mathematical probabilities and I'm not sure how reliable these probability based calculations are. Here is an example of one: the cosmological constant. Here is a quote from the book 'The Case for a Creator' - Lee Strobel. Strobel is interviewing Robin Collins Phd (physics):
'When I asked Collins..., he told me that the unexpected, counterintuitive, and stunningly precise setting of the cosmological constant ''is widely regarded as the single greatest problem facing physics and cosmology today.'' How precise is it? I asked. Collins rolled his eyes. ''Well, there's no way we can really comprehend it'', he said. ''The fine-tuning has conservatively been estimated to be at least one part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion. That would be a ten followed by fifty-three zeroes. That's inconceivably precise.'''
How do they arrive at this calculation and if it is indeed correct why do physicist/mathematicians like Collins understand it to mean that it is not chance that accounts for this precise 'tuning'? Is it legitimate to rule out chance once you reach certain calculations?
'When I asked Collins..., he told me that the unexpected, counterintuitive, and stunningly precise setting of the cosmological constant ''is widely regarded as the single greatest problem facing physics and cosmology today.'' How precise is it? I asked. Collins rolled his eyes. ''Well, there's no way we can really comprehend it'', he said. ''The fine-tuning has conservatively been estimated to be at least one part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion. That would be a ten followed by fifty-three zeroes. That's inconceivably precise.'''
How do they arrive at this calculation and if it is indeed correct why do physicist/mathematicians like Collins understand it to mean that it is not chance that accounts for this precise 'tuning'? Is it legitimate to rule out chance once you reach certain calculations?

"The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility"
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein