Jim Henderson wrote:
> Not so much that they're too unlikely, but that they are vague enough as 
> to take anything that fits the criteria and say "well, it happened, so 
> therefore it wasn't improbable enough".  See the difference?

That's what science is for. And statistics. Generally speaking, it's 
*possible* quantum particles could randomly come into existence in the 
shape of a living, breathing Jesus. Unlikely enough I'd attribute it to 
something else, tho.

It's *possible* that all cancer world-wide spontaneously disappears a 
week after Pat Robertson gets on TV and tells people to pray for that. 
Again, statistically unlikely.

Yes, I could play the games that religious people play defending their 
faith, but I wouldn't.

> Sure, but none of that particularly implies rapture.

I wasn't trying to be 100% precise, because I have no expectation on any 
reward for my efforts. I don't expect my proof to materialize, and I 
don't expect religious people to respect or understand my atheism any 
more regardless of how precise I am.

> it could well be said that the rest of 
> us are in hell and those few were saved.

Then this turns into a pretty silly argument, doesn't it? :-)

>> I'll personally disagree on this one. Sometimes, you're just f'ed, and
>> that's necessary for a free society.
> 
> Perhaps, but you'll note that I didn't say it was government's role, but 
> society's role.  I think an important part of a decent society is to 
> recognize bad things happening and to say "hey, that's bad" and to do 
> something about it.

Do something about it with force? You're describing government.

> That is why, as a society, we have laws.

I understand. I think it would be a bad law to let the government decide 
what's best for your own children.

> second, that God missed.

<punchline> God damn it, I missed. </punchline>

Heh.

Plus, of course, an event of size one is really not something easy to 
analyze statistically.


> Statistically speaking, all of those events are quite improbable, yet it 
> happened.

Statistics doesn't apply to one event, generally speaking. Everything 
that actually happens is 100% probably. :-)

Is it miraculous that I roll 10 6's in a row? No. Is it miraculous that 
I can do it on demand without cheating? Sure.

You can't look at an event that already happened, and say "gee, that was 
really unlikely, so something must be up." Basic rule of statistics.

> Agreed, because belief isn't logical.  Otherwise, it wouldn't be belief, 
> it'd be fact-based.

Well, it isn't (in my experience) logical, but it's also not scientific. 
The two are somewhat different.

>> There's also the other fun kinds of conversations: "Do you believe in
>> Life After Death?"
>>     "Sure."
>> "Then you *are* religious."
>>     "No, why would you say that? Can't there be LaD without God?"
> 
> Heh, yes, that's true enough.  (The "fun conversation" aspect, not the 
> content).

If you like that sort of stuff, read some Greg Egan works. I'd recommend 
Permutation City for a start, or his Axiomatic short-story collection.

>> And it constantly amazes me the number of people who try to support
>> religion by pretending organization of structure is unimportant. That
>> there must be some physical "thing" that represents the difference
>> between a live person and a dead person, beyond how the parts are
>> positioned.
> 
> Well, some people do seem to have the need to think "there's got to be 
> more to it than what I see", and I don't have a problem with that up to 
> the point that they try to convince me that if I just studied harder/
> prayed harder/did whatever they do, it'd be revealed to me as well.  I've 
> got my own understanding of the universe based - I think like yours - 
> around what I can observe or logically infer from what I observe.

Well, yes. But what I was trying to say is, I see many arguments along 
the lines that the soul must exist because there's no physical 
difference between the chemicals in a live body and in a dead body. Yet 
these same people will cheerfully ask you to install the operating 
system on their new blank hard drive. :)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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