Probability of God's existence → zero

[fr0d0]

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To repeat VOID

The probability of God existing is infinitesimally small, and could be considered impossible.

The probability of people existing is infinitesimally small, and could be considered impossible.

This isn't a convincing argument.

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There are two important differences:

1) God is a single entity and 'people' is a collection of entities.

2) The probability of a person existing (like me) has certain definitions. You will need (assuming you can, of course!) find a person with my name, my attributes (such as hair colour etc ...), living in a particular city – London, the fact that I post on atheistforums.org with a particular username etc … some maybe smaller than others but no where near ‘infinitesimal’. There are 6m people living in London (I think!) that is no where near the probability involving the countless entities in the entire universe and the unique attributes such as being the omniscient!

That's one difference. Yes I realised that was what I was saying. If both were species though (God & Human), and we were both under consideration as possibly extant from a remote (ie either of our existence would be unknown to them) alien species... then the chance of either God or Human existing would be infinitesimally small.

[theVOID]

Fluke, you listed 6 attributes for God, each of which makes that particular configuration more improbable, but you as an individual have millions of attributes, by your reasoning you are far more unlikely to exist than god.

[Edwardo Piet]

We can now say that there is a very infinitesimal chance that God exists. An absolutely infinitesimal chance can be ignored and rounded to zero as not being statistically significant.

LOL @ rounded off.

You conclude that God almost certainly exists. I also think this. You then 'round it off', well you can do what you like with your 'rounding off' but you can't just 'magic it into zero' lol. He almost certainly doesn't exist, that is clearly very different to absolutely certainly, definitely non-existent. The probability of God cannot be proven to be zero insofar as I can tell, so to say the probability is zero is intellectually dishonest and claiming more than you can know

It is impossible to absolutely disprove God insofar as I can tell, for he is absolutely undetectable and his possible existence is indistinguishable from his possible non-existence.

He's just a lot more fucking likely to not exist than to exist

EvF

[Fluké]

Fluke, you listed 6 attributes for God, each of which makes that particular configuration more improbable, but you as an individual have millions of attributes, by your reasoning you are far more unlikely to exist than god.

I don't follow this reasoning.

It isn't merely the number of attributes but the nature of attributes we are dealing with.

For a human being to find a person who has hazelnut hair, living in London etc … isn’t even remotely comparable to the attributes of being the maker of the universe, all-good etc …

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We can now say that there is a very infinitesimal chance that God exists. An absolutely infinitesimal chance can be ignored and rounded to zero as not being statistically significant.

LOL @ rounded off.

You conclude that God almost certainly exists. I also think this. You then 'round it off', well you can do what you like with your 'rounding off' but you can't just 'magic it into zero' lol. He almost certainly doesn't exist, that is clearly very different to absolutely certainly, definitely non-existent. The probability of God cannot be proven to be zero insofar as I can tell, so to say the probability is zero is intellectually dishonest and claiming more than you can know

It is impossible to absolutely disprove God insofar as I can tell, for he is absolutely undetectable and his possible existence is indistinguishable from his possible non-existence.

He's just a lot more fucking likely to not exist than to exist

EvF

I am baffled by your thinking that I somehow said:

He almost certainly doesn't exist, that is clearly very different to absolutely certainly, definitely non-existent.

What on Earth lead you to draw that bizarre conclusion? But you are quite right in saying it is an absolutely impossible conclusion to make.

My thread, as you can see by the title, is “Probability of God's existence → zero”. I am not saying he doesn’t empirically exist, but what I am saying is that the PROBABILITY tends to zero. In other words, I am pointing out how VERY unluckily it is.

[Edwardo Piet]

I said that, not you. I was making a point.

You said this

We can now say that there is a very infinitesimal chance that God exists. An absolutely infinitesimal chance can be ignored and rounded to zero as not being statistically significant.

And it makes no sense if you're actually arguing that God's probability is zero. You can't just 'round off' "almost certainly doesn't exist" to "the probability of his existence is zero". If you can't rationally say he definitely doesn't exist then 'rounding it off' doesn't make any difference.

Saying his probability is zero is exactly the same as saying he is impossible so yes you did say that, maybe you didn't mean it, but that's what it actually means.

EvF

[Fluké]

And it makes no sense if you're actually arguing that God's probability is zero.

You can't just 'round off' "almost certainly doesn't exist" to "the probability of his existence is zero". If you can't rationally say he definitely doesn't exist then 'rounding it off' doesn't make any difference.

Saying his probability is zero is exactly the same as saying he is impossible so yes you did say that, maybe you didn't mean it, but that's what it actually means.

Actually, I argued that the probability of the existence of God ISN'T zero, but that it tends to zero.

The rounding off aspect if how we treat infinitesimal probabilities that tend to zero.

Kind of like the probability of a person charged with murder saying someone else did it who has his exact DNA.

[Edwardo Piet]

Oh okay... the title and other stuff you said made me think you were saying God was impossible by rounding it up from almost impossible.

EvF