probability of god

Originally posted by dryhump
I was just wondering, Has anyone ever seen a statistical analysis of the probabilty of god's existence? I had a teacher in highschool who told me that some mathematician had come up with a formula proving there is a god. I also wondered if there had been any statistical analysis of the probability of the universe having been created by god. Thought it might make an interesting study.

Can't be reasonably done I'm afraid.

Originally posted by Swlabr
"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Surely that is just love?

Bizarro-God strikes again.

Originally posted by twhitehead
1. She shouldn't be teaching in high school (at least not in the sciences).
2. If you believed her then you should probably not have passed high school.
3. Why do you think she might get into trouble for showing you? Are you a conspiracy theorist?

She was an algebra teacher, to answer a previous question. Plenty of teachers believe in god, to answer question one. I never said I believed her one way or the other, just wondered if anyone had seen it. I never asked her then because I didn't care. She told us about it in class and said she could get in trouble because of the seperation of church and state.

this is insane, i'm afraid.

Originally posted by dryhump
She was an algebra teacher, to answer a previous question. Plenty of teachers believe in god, to answer question one. I never said I believed her one way or the other, just wondered if anyone had seen it. I never asked her then because I didn't care. She told us about it in class and said she could get in trouble because of the seperation of church and state.

While I disagree with Twhitehead (I don't see any reason why she shouldn't teach math in high school.), I can tell you as some one who likely has more training in mathematics than her, and specifically probability and statistics, that there is not a valid proof of god using statistics. Furthermore, I can say without qualification that it cannot be done.

Twhitehead already explained why in a simple, but sufficient manner.

Finally, if you are really interested, then why don't you approach her outside of class (perhaps after school to ask her about the proof). She may tell you it or more likely point you vaguely in the direction of where to look for it. When you have a lead come back here and show us. Most likely it is Pascal's Wager, which is not actually an existence proof at all but rather an argument for being a Christian in the face of uncertainty about the existence of a god.

As for your teacher I think it is sort of fishy that she claims a proof exists and then doesn't show because of seperation of church and state. It seems that telling kids that God can be proven to exist does much more to violate the spirit of the law than explaining does.

Originally posted by Swlabr
Could they perhaps be referring to Pascal's Wager? Set down by Blaise Pascal (the same man that lent his name to a certain triangle), it states that you may as well believe in God; if you do believe and there is no God, you have lost little but if you do not believe and there is a God, you have lost everything.

The wiki entry explains it better,
http://tinyurl.com/4ze2t

Pascal's Wager fails to take into account the infinite other possibilities. They all cancel out.

Will I go to Hell if I screw my neighbor's wife?

Well, maybe, but then maybe God didn't write the Bible, and will in fact send you to Heaven for such an act. Who knows?

Originally posted by dryhump
Why is it ridiculous?

Well, God being proven by math would place him in the realm of science... and remove the need for religion. But you really can't analyze it, even if it was 90% statistical chance (impossible to evaluate), it would not be proven.

Originally posted by dryhump
She was an algebra teacher, to answer a previous question. Plenty of teachers believe in god, to answer question one. I never said I believed her one way or the other, just wondered if anyone had seen it. I never asked her then because I didn't care. She told us about it in class and said she could get in trouble because of the seperation of church and state.

Don't be silly, you can BELIEVE in god without telling impressionable students that he can be mathematically proven (unless he is an observable shape, equation, pattern, or such, impossible anyway). And the separation of church and state... that explains it... church always goes out of its way to distort evidence. She wouldn't get in trouble if it was real proof, or statistically probable with verifiable results, only if it was a CHURCH matter, with no MATH proof. She's a liar or an idiot. Pick one.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Pascal's Wager fails to take into account the infinite other possibilities. They all cancel out.

Will I go to Hell if I screw my neighbor's wife?

Well, maybe, but then maybe God didn't write the Bible, and will in fact send you to Heaven for such an act. Who knows?

Logical.