Who throws the dice for you?

[Fromper]

I'm suddenly reminded of the TV show "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles". In one of the later episodes, a pre-terminator robot is being "taught" like a child how to interact with humans, and one of the scientists is playing D&D with it. The robot manages to roll a couple of 20s on a 20 sided die to get very good results, which the scientist teaching it thinks is lucky until someone else points out that the robot can probably manipulate the die well enough to roll a 20 any time it wants to.

[Cyberman]

When it is said that randomness is a function of ignorance, what is meant is that the variables responsible for a result are unknown to the observer of the "random" event.

Are you trying to imply that there is some hidden purpose behind every event we interpret as random? From dice rolls to lightning strikes, that sort of thing?

You know, I think I would actually like to meet this god of Yahtzee. S/he sounds like a barrel of laughs.

[Silver]

etc. the outcome becomes predictable.

Actually, the outcome would become probable. Not predictable.

So who or what is throwing the dice for you atheists?

What dice?

[Cato]

I'm more concerned about the unaccounted for fly that shits on the table in the path of my dice just after release. My calculations turn to craps.

[Minimalist]

Dice are random.... between 1 and 6. Outside of that narrow range? Not so much.

[Fromper]

Dice are random.... between 1 and 6. Outside of that narrow range? Not so much.

You've obviously never played Dungeons and Dragons.

[tor]

If I roll dice, the out come of the roll is completely random to me. However If I looked at the dice roll in sufficient detail....noting the initial point of contact, velocity, angular momentum, coefficient of friction, etc. the outcome becomes predictable. It would seem then that randomness is really just a function of ignorance.

This LaPlacian view holds true until you get to the quantum level. At the quantum level events happen which physicists tell us are fundamentally random. Fundamentally random is a hard pill to swallow when randomness appears to be a function of ignorance.

So who or what is throwing the dice for you atheists?

Who is causing quantum processes? Nobody.

[Heywood]

I'm suddenly reminded of the TV show "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles". In one of the later episodes, a pre-terminator robot is being "taught" like a child how to interact with humans, and one of the scientists is playing D&D with it. The robot manages to roll a couple of 20s on a 20 sided die to get very good results, which the scientist teaching it thinks is lucky until someone else points out that the robot can probably manipulate the die well enough to roll a 20 any time it wants to.

A game of Dungeons and Dragons requires an element of randomness which is provided by the roll of the die. The universe needs an element of randomness too. But where does this element of randomness come from? I have a hard time accepting the idea that randomness just exists. In my mind the universe is either super-deterministic or there is a non-physical non-local element to reality in which randomness is being generated.

If a supernatural God is throwing the dice for us, I would expect that from our perspective randomness would just appear to be. As this happens to be the case in my mind a quantum mechanical world fits very nicely with theism. If I were an atheist, I would be stuck with super determinism.

Is that all you atheists have is super determinism or is there something else that I am missing?

[tor]

I'm suddenly reminded of the TV show "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles". In one of the later episodes, a pre-terminator robot is being "taught" like a child how to interact with humans, and one of the scientists is playing D&D with it. The robot manages to roll a couple of 20s on a 20 sided die to get very good results, which the scientist teaching it thinks is lucky until someone else points out that the robot can probably manipulate the die well enough to roll a 20 any time it wants to.

A game of Dungeons and Dragons requires an element of randomness which is provided by the roll of the die. The universe needs an element of randomness too. But where does this element of randomness come from? I have a hard time accepting the idea that randomness just exists. In my mind the universe is either super-deterministic or there is a non-physical non-local element to reality in which randomness is being generated.

If a supernatural God is throwing the dice for us, I would expect that from our perspective randomness would just appear to be. As this happens to be the case in my mind a quantum mechanical world fits very nicely with theism. If I were an atheist, I would be stuck with super determinism.

Is that all you atheists have is super determinism or is there something else that I am missing?

Are gods actions determined?

[Tonus]

Is that all you atheists have is super determinism or is there something else that I am missing?

I don't really think about it. What led me away from theism was not ever finding god. Posts like your OP sound to me as if you are saying that god must exist because you cannot fathom a universe where he does not. That seems, to me, to approach the issue from the wrong end. I suppose that some day it might be shown that the universe cannot exist without god, and that therefore god has to exist. I think he could make it a lot easier on everyone by just showing up.