Faith, Reason and Truth

[Springheel]

For instance, science can never answer the question of whether or not there is a God, as it cannot be conclusively proven either way.

 

Perhaps not, but you certainly could provide a lot of circumstantial evidence. If studies showed, for example, that believers who prayed to a specific god were able to heal amputees and children with Down's syndrom, that would be interesting evidence. If studies showed that the believers of a certain religion were happier, healthier and lived longer than the general population, that would be interesting. If one of the world's "holy books" had specific, detailed prophecies that came true, or had clear information about scientific principles unknown to people at the time the book was written, that would certainly be interesting.

 

None of those would constitute "proof", but they would certainly go a long way towards making belief in a religion a reasonable proposition.

 

Unfortunately, none of those things exist.

 

I agree that this makes them different from beliefs, in the sense that where a scientist might shrug his shoulders and say "I don't know", a theologist would insert a plausible explanation. But this doesn't necessarily make the theologist wrong.

 

No, it doesn't. Any more than the person who uses their birth date to guess the number of jellybeans in the jar is "necessarily" wrong. But the chances of them being right are so remote that it is reasonable to assume they're wrong.

 

However, we are not entitled to pronounce someone as wrong. You don't have to swallow the notion of God (I don't) but you do have to accept that we as humans can't (and never will be able to) rule him out as a possibility, even using the best scientific methods.

 

You're trying to retreat back into the thinking that "since we can't rule it out, then it is plausible". That's simply not true. You can't technically rule anything out...that doesn't mean every idea is plausible.

 

As I said in my previous post, just because we can't know something 100%, we can still be justified in claiming some ideas are wrong. This is abundantly clear when we add more concrete statements into your claim above. Do any of these sound like something you'd want to defend?

 

"You're not entitled to pronounce someone (who thinks you owe them a million dollars) as wrong."

"You're not entitled to pronounce someone (who thinks the earth is flat) as wrong."

"You're not entitled to pronounce someone (who thinks the holocaust never happened) as wrong."

 

While you might not be able to rule any of those things out with absolute 100% certainty, in practical terms, they're wrong.

 

@ Jdude

 

And you ignored the part I wrote about it having measurable life quality impacts on people.

 

You're right, I forgot to mention that above, although I addressed it at the time. Just because you believe something and it makes you happy, you cannot therefore assume your beliefs are true. I thought the analogy of believing you won the lottery was pretty clear. Believing something because it makes you feel good is almost the definition of an irrational reason to believe something.

 

Most my reasons are highly personal and I don't feel like sharing them, but the discussion was limited to the book of Moses I thought.

 

The "Book of Moses" is from Mormonism. Do you mean Exodus?

 

You spoke of believing in a religion. Why would we limit ourselves to a single story in the Old Testament?

 

Anyway, if you don't want to provide other evidence that's ok.

[demagogue]

I might contribute a post on this, but I'll have to think about what's actually contributing to the talk (and I'll have to find the time!)

 

But in the meantime, here's a little comic relief courtesy of The Onion: Armageddon to be Taught Alongside Global Warming

[Springheel]

 

I love the Onion.

[OrbWeaver]

Whoa. So I checked in on this thread, thinking "how is this topic still clinging to life?", only to dscover that a conversation about the OP's prejudices and paranoia (and let's face it, that's all it is) has turned into a discussion on postmodernism and epistemology! I really don't want the read the whole thread, so would someone mind telling me how we got here?

 

It is a phenomenon repeatedly observed on The Dark Mod forums, that any trivial discussion eventually elevates into a high-brow philosophical debate. It's like the mirror image of YouTube.

[jdude]

Anyway, if you don't want to provide other evidence that's ok.

I'm not going to debate this with you because I think your being unreasonable.

[Springheel]

I'm not going to debate this with you because I think your being unreasonable.

 

If you don't want to discuss it any further that's fine; though to claim it's because I'm "unreasonable" is almost comical, considering the content of our discussion.

 

What exactly have I said that you would consider "unreasonable"?

[jdude]

If you don't want to discuss it any further that's fine; though to claim it's because I'm "unreasonable" is almost comical, considering the content of our discussion.

 

What exactly have I said that you would consider "unreasonable"?

 

Well you appear to fail to lack empathy for my views (or anyone else that don't apply to the strict standards of rational that you've set for your life), you write off my ideas as irrational nonsense or not an answer at all, you make assumptions on the statements I've made, when I bring up good counter cases you appear to ignore it, and you fail to answer my question to help me understand your perspective. It's unreasonable because when having a discussion like this it's important to try and be empathetic to the other side's view to understand where their coming from to try and understand the subject and each other better and instead of doing that you keep acting in an arrogant manner so I might as well be speaking to a brick wall.

 

And I've tried to consistently communicate that rationality is based on one's perspective yet you somehow cannot indulge me and imagine how one can rationally arrive at religion unless they have some 'solid irrefutable evidence' for that claim and apparently people's quality of life (doesn't mean happiness) or religious experiences do not indicate some sort of connection for you, but it does for me.

[Diego]

I'd love to catch up with this debate but you people write too much

[Springheel]

when having a discussion like this it's important to try and be empathetic to the other side's view

 

I agree it's important to try and understand the other person's point, and I have been trying my best to do that, although it's not always easy. You have already admitted that you have difficulty communicating your thoughts through written language. It's certainly possible I have misinterpreted something you said.

 

you write off my ideas as irrational nonsense

 

I haven't "written off" anything. I've taken two examples that you provided and showed how they don't fit the criteria for rational thought. If I agreed with everything you said it wouldn't be much of a discussion, would it?

 

when I bring up good counter cases you appear to ignore it

 

Please direct me to anything you've said that you feel I have ignored. While I can't respond to every single sentence I certainly have not ignored anything intentionally.

 

you fail to answer my question to help me understand your perspective

 

Please direct me to any question you've asked that I've failed to answer.

 

I've tried to consistently communicate that rationality is based on one's perspective yet you somehow cannot indulge me

 

Yes, because I disagree with that assertion. Rational thought does not depend on one's perspective. The conclusions one draws from it might, as I've already admitted, twice. If you think you can make a good case that rational thought is "based on one's perspective" then I would be interested in hearing it.

 

apparently people's quality of life (doesn't mean happiness) or religious experiences do not indicate some sort of connection for you, but it does for me.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "some sort of connection". You were trying to tell me that there were rational reasons to believe in religion. I assume that means "there are rational reasons to believe the claims of the religion (I still don't even know which religion you're talking about) are true".

 

How does someone's "quality of life" say anything about whether their religion is true? Many Scientologists say that they have a much better quality of life since joining that religion. Does that mean the claims of Scientology are true? Should we start worshiping Lord Xenu because some people think he makes their life better?

[Baddcog]

I almost wish I ffelt like reading this whole thread. It certianly could be interesting and/or funny.

 

I believe there is a higher power than humans, it's all around us everyday. It's called nature, as much as we fight back, as hard as we try we can never contain or control it.

 

And I also believe religion is a great way to control the masses. What's scarier than burning in a lake of fire for all eternity, that's scary stuff. Some people just can't except that this might just be it. You get to live, then you die. All the mass and energy we are made of is continually coming and going, we are not the same people we were at birth, and we'll be different by the time we die.

 

I think alot of people get worried they won't have perfect eternity because they know they are wasting their lives right now. It's a garanteed second chance, who doesn't want that.

But to delude yourself just so you can justify wasting this one life you DO have... well, I'd rather live now. I still have good morals... But would a loving God not accept me because I am not religious.

It would be one thing if God came to me and said 'hear I am', but just believing because MEN wrote the bible thousands of years ago and said he spoke to them... I don't know too many people I really trust, why would I believe men from thousands of years ago?

[OrbWeaver]

And I've tried to consistently communicate that rationality is based on one's perspective

 

Yes, because I disagree with that assertion. Rational thought does not depend on one's perspective.

 

Actually I think I have an idea what jdude is saying, which is that in the context of personal choices, what is rational for one person may not be rational for another. This is referring to "rationality" as in rational choice theory, which is a slightly different meaning to rationality as it refers to logically-sound deductions derived from evidence.

 

Essentially what he is saying is not that religious beliefs are objectively rational in the sense that they stand up to logical scrutiny, but that choosing religious beliefs may be a rational choice for an individual if adopting such a belief system provides a net benefit to that individual.

 

Your disagreement therefore arises because you are using the same word to refer to two different concepts.

[Springheel]

Your disagreement therefore arises because you are using the same word to refer to two different concepts.

 

That's frequently the case on the internet.

 

However, I was actually anticipating that usage to some degree when I said two people could rationally arrive at different conclusions.

 

choosing religious beliefs may be a rational choice for an individual if adopting such a belief system provides a net benefit to that individual.

 

I would consider that an argument for the practical value of belief in a religion. Belief in a religion can certainly provide individual benefits. An inherently unethical person might be kept in check by their fear of eternal torment. Someone who has lost a loved one might feel comforted believing they will see them again. Someone might feel special because they believe the creator of the universe has a specific relationship with them. That doesn't lend any credence to those things being true, however.

 

Can someone believe an irrational claim for rational reasons? I'm not sure that's possible, as it would seem to suggest that "belief" is subject to will ("I choose to believe this delusion because it helps me.") If one is actually a rational, reasonable person, belief is NOT subject to will. When provided with compelling evidence, the belief of a reasonable person MUST change. Belief (at a basic level) is not a choice.

 

I suspect (though I'm just musing here) that faith-based beliefs are actually established by something else, and are then maintained (ie, shielded against criticism) because they provide some value to the individual.

[Diego]

I think I get where this discussion is orbiting. Let me organize my argument...

 

 

- Science is a bunch of information that possibly explains the universe. Possibly. See? If I release a coin, for example, I will observe the object moving downwards and say "maybe it always move like that". So I repeat the experiment and achieve the same result. Well, it fell again, so I repeat the experiment a lot of times! how many times do I have to repeat the experiment to be 100% sure it will always move downwards? the answer is: an infinite number of times. So, it's impossible to be 100% sure, ok? The belief in what science has to say about nature relies entirely on what we are calling here "reason". If we find evidence that this information is wrong then science changes immediately! This is what makes it fundamentally different from religions, rather than just different theories about nature.

 

- A religion is not simply the belief in a god (or more than one), is a whole bunch of informations about the universe.

 

- What happens if the first contradicts the second at some point? If you are 'reasonable' enough to believe the coin will always move downwards then you will leave religion aside.

 

What reasonable but very religious people do in this situation (i've seen more than once during physics graduation) is that they relax their religion where necessary. For example, science doesn't have anything to say about a creator of the universe, so you can believe that if you want. However, creationism predicts several things that contradicts what science says, so they leave that aside.

[Springheel]

 

What reasonable but very religious people do in this situation (i've seen more than once during physics graduation) is that they relax their religion where necessary. For example, science doesn't have anything to say about a creator of the universe, so you can believe that if you want. However, creationism predicts several things that contradicts what science says, so they leave that aside.

 

I think that's a good observation. Among relatively reasonable people, religion continues to retreat into areas that science has yet to explain. "You can't explain exactly how abiogenesis happened? Ha! Ok, my belief in God can live there."

 

The problem is that such a belief is still irrational. They're presupposing that their religion is true, and then backing away from areas where science seems to contradict their belief. It's the same kind of thinking that makes people say, "Well, you can't disprove God, therefore my belief in God is reasonable."

 

The rational approach is to ask, "Is there any evidence to suggest that a particular god or religion is true?" and to base your beliefs on whatever evidence does or does not exist. Unfortunately, most religious people are indoctrinated as children, making sure that the belief is deeply ingrained long before they have the ability to think critically about it.

[bambini]

I think I get where this discussion is orbiting. Let me organize my argument...<snip>

Excellent points, well put. I think you've summarised the debate well

Now, back to this discussion with young Springheel, who's starting to get on my wick :

Perhaps not, but you certainly could provide a lot of circumstantial evidence. If studies showed, for example, that believers who prayed to a specific god were able to heal amputees and children with Down's syndrom, that would be interesting evidence. If studies showed that the believers of a certain religion were happier, healthier and lived longer than the general population, that would be interesting. If one of the world's "holy books" had specific, detailed prophecies that came true, or had clear information about scientific principles unknown to people at the time the book was written, that would certainly be interesting. None of those would constitute "proof", but they would certainly go a long way towards making belief in a religion a reasonable proposition.

All this would "prove" is the existence of a benevolent/meddlesome God and that the Bible was written by men and wasn't the direct Word of God. I never made suggestions otherwise. I also never suggested that the Bible was a literal text or anything of the sort. Throughout this discussion I've been talking about belief in a God or other higher power, not the intricacies of any particular faith, all of which (in my eyes) are largely flawed because of the capacity for misuse or misinterpretation, but provide guidelines for how to live a life.

I agree that this makes them different from beliefs, in the sense that where a scientist might shrug his shoulders and say "I don't know", a theologist would insert a plausible explanation. But this doesn't necessarily make the theologist wrong.

No, it doesn't. Any more than the person who uses their birth date to guess the number of jellybeans in the jar is "necessarily" wrong. But the chances of them being right are so remote that it is reasonable to assume they're wrong.

 

I agree, but we aren't talking about plucking answers out of thin air here, we are talking about people using available information and coming to their own conclusions about matters that are unavoidably beyond human limits of understanding. Counting jellybeans is not one of these issues. It's quite within the limits of humans to take a guess at the number of jellybeans. But think about this. What if the jar is covered up, so we can't ever "see" the answer. All we know is that the jar is a certain size and has jellybeans in it. Just because we disagree on the number of jellybeans, doesn't make either of us wrong. Sure, only one of use can be right, and chances are we are both off the mark. However, we've both simply taken available information (which is never going to be enough information to make a proper decision) and made an informed guess based on our understanding of the world. Other people might believe the jar is empty, and they could well be right too. Another guy could use their date of birth to pick a number, and you're right, the chances are they're way off, but they too could be right. The same applies to this whole religion/science debate. We don't have the answers because we don't, and never will, have all the information we need. Some possibilities seem more plausible, but there's never going to be a "right answer" and even if there is we are never going to know if we've got it.

You're trying to retreat back into the thinking that "since we can't rule it out, then it is plausible". That's simply not true. You can't technically rule anything out...that doesn't mean every idea is plausible.

 

As I said in my previous post, just because we can't know something 100%, we can still be justified in claiming some ideas are wrong. This is abundantly clear when we add more concrete statements into your claim above. Do any of these sound like something you'd want to defend?

 

"You're not entitled to pronounce someone (who thinks you owe them a million dollars) as wrong."

"You're not entitled to pronounce someone (who thinks the earth is flat) as wrong."

"You're not entitled to pronounce someone (who thinks the holocaust never happened) as wrong."

 

While you might not be able to rule any of those things out with absolute 100% certainty, in practical terms, they're wrong.

 

Now this is the part that has annoyed me a little as you seem to have taken my comments completely out of context. I'm not arguing this to be the case. With the exception of "the earth is flat" (which I've already discussed earlier), these are matters of historical information, and historical information is a socially constructed reality that we exist in. And in this reality, the holocaust actually did happen and I don't owe anyone a million dollars. We could argue that this is all subjective (sort of a Matrix-esque take on things) and start to question the nature of reality, but since we can't escape reality it is irrelevant and silly. However, I don't want to get bogged down in this because this is very much off at a tangent.

 

 

 

This is not what I've been talking about though. This whole debate is about the existence of those things, which (as I've already said) is the realm of things that are beyond the human capacity – those things which we will have to put our hands up and say "I don't know". In that area, we can go only by probability: there probably isn't a God, but how can anyone say there definitely isn't? This is a totally different topic to matters of historical accuracy. And yes, I am saying that since we can't rule it out is remains plausible. And I stand by that. I'm not saying that everything is equally plausible though, nor am I saying that there are no things that are implausible.

[nbohr1more]

I'd say that the path to belief in religion is paved by a belief in magic. Essentially this is the sequence:

 

1) Some cultural indoctrination about the idea of magic (Bed-Time Story, Movie, Bible, etc.)

2) Some "historical" account of a magical event happening as further evidence. (Miracle story)

3) Some personal experience that can be seen as magical (coincidence, dream, Ebenezer Scrooge tummy effect , etc )

4) Person becomes convinced that magic is possibly part of our reality.

5) Person appeals to Religion as the normative place for believing in magic.

 

So it's a succession of personal observations about "what magic is" and whether it exists. As long as you hold to any of the experiences you've had as a fact that magic is possible then the thought process that leads to monotheist belief could be considered rational relative to it's origin. But if you are looking for absolute rationality then, yes, you must compare your experience and ensure that is it repeatable in some fashion.

 

As humans we are pattern finders and we often project patterns into places where the true answer is in question. So, for example, we might think that using electromagnetism to move objects is a magical reality altering experience for a bug on the experiment table so why couldn't another "higher-order being" alter our reality in a similar fashion. So this would be a postulation that God is some sort of Alien with better technology than us. But, yes, we have no good reason to think that this advanced Alien ever visited us other than hokey Alien Observer stories and questionable interpretations of stone carvings (etc). OTOH I would say that using one pattern and extrapolating to another one is one of the tools that we consider part of rational thought "tool-set" AFAIK?

[SneaksieDave]

Not going to jump into this, but logical fallacy always bothers.

 

It is basic logic (I don't mean in the "I'm so smart!" sense, but rather in the sense of applied logic principles) that the burden of proof isn't on the shoulders of the one denying; it's on the shoulders of the one claiming.

 

For the applied reason: take a college level logic course; it will be demonstrated why this is necessarily the case.

For one real-world, simple reason: anyone could claim anything (bigfoot?) and then it would be the job of the listeners to disprove the claim.

[nbohr1more]

Yep.

 

For all "technically correct" interpretations of Logic and Rationality we have to jump through hoops to come to a religious conclusion. At the very least we are violating Occam's Razor. And I think that any thoughtful religious believer would have to agree with this assertion.

 

So I think jdude's concept is that in spite of absolute technical considerations, if you personally experience religion in your life that you are not a raving lunatic (like me ...) and that, since you've had this experience, it wouldn't be too far outside of the realm of sanity to extrapolate religious interpretations for Scientific evidence or rework your interpretation of the religious text to fit the facts we have acquired thus far (from Science). Neither option should not immediately land you in the nut-house. So this is probably a case of blurring the technical definition of "rational" and it's slang pejorative use.

 

But if we have a majority populace that says that Science is incorrect then we do have a problem. For example, without the concept of evolution we have no good reason to explain why prehistoric viruses are trapped in our DNA sequence. So if we had somehow found these sequences without having evolution as a framework we would not know what we were looking at and may have accidentally re-enabled long dormant diseases. Or even simpler, the concept of bacteria becoming immune to antibiotics would be very hard to explain (would not have been anticipated...).

 

Modern versions of literal religious interpretation include evolution in their framework but have accelerated it's prehistoric pace beyond what we currently observe in nature. As far as jdude is concerned believing that the passage time itself was somehow altered by God in prehistory would not be a detriment to current studies of the phenomenon now. While this is problematic, I'd say that Science itself has commited a similar questionable act of time compression with Guth's Inflation Theory but we (again) have much better evidence that Guth is onto something from COBE. The crux of the issue is that if magic exists then you have no logical starting place to look for the origin of any phenomenon because magic has no experimental reliability. If the world insists that we start with the presumption of magic before we begin our investigations then we have to live with the murk of a magical and uncontrollable world. This would defeat any kind of Scientific pursuit and over the years would drive us back to the Dark Ages.

 

These are slippery slope reactions in some degree. What if we forbid all religion because it's "irrational"? What if Science dies because too many religious people object to it's methods? Neither scenario is likely but each is possible. The nature of some of this discussion is "which of the two terrible scenarios do you fear more?"

[Diego]

The problem is that such a belief is still irrational. They're presupposing that their religion is true, and then backing away from areas where science seems to contradict their belief. It's the same kind of thinking that makes people say, "Well, you can't disprove God, therefore my belief in God is reasonable."

 

I agree that, at some smaller degree, it is still irrational. But it's much more acceptable I don't really have a problem with people believing in god or that there are unicorns living in the center of the moon building magical shopping centers. It's the stuff like creationism that really gets under my skin!

[Outlooker]

Well, my english is not the best and I haven't had time to read the thread entirely, but I think I might add a few facts (as I see them) to clear some things up a little:

 

All philosophy (and all science) has until now not achieved to answer the greatest and most basic problem we are all concerned with:

 

Where do we come from, why we are here , and where we are going to.

 

 

We just somehow develop consciousness at some point and don't now how or why; we are stumbling through our lives by whatever seems useful; and then we die, knowing not what happens after that with certainty.

 

Reason and science don't help much here, because there is just no data, no facts to work with.

 

 

Organized religion is usually a scam and/or a political control thing;

but

(to quote Dostoevsky :"If God does not exist, everything is permitted")

Think about it - if one would be 100% sure there is no god to "punish" ones "sins" in the unknown after death , this person could do ANYTHING - any atrocity on any scale, you just had to make sure not to get caught or rise to absolute power).

 

 

I think it is very important to separate , if you will, (organized) religion from religiousness per se.

 

I don't believe in any hogwash of any organized religion -I feel they are all just made up by humans for money/control/political power .

 

However, I _HOPE_ that there is MEANING to all of this I am and that surrounds me - and that it is a good.

Therefore, I sometimes "pray" - not to please some Jesus or any specific trendy religions god, but in a much more general way - for coping with fear, wanting the best for all (and me), to maybe gain hope and meaning to all of this; for I understand almost nothing, know nothing for sure (other than I know that I am) and in the end have no control about what happens with me.

 

That praying is just by pure luck an anatomic and cultural thing - I could as well do it without folding hands or by wiggling my back fin if I had one - the outer form is just not important at all.

 

I'm quite anti-religion myself; but I'm not atheist - I'm agnostic : I see it absolute logical that we have to doubt if there is just no proof, not even something to use for a good presumption. So ANY argument about god exists/not exists is without any value for me until there is proof.

 

However, it is science that gave me much hope that "there is something" in terms of meaning and greatness: look at the universe - it's dimensions alone are so vast it's impossible to comprehend it for our current minds (which limits of comprehension are quite reached if confronted with the huge space of, say, the African Savannah - for anything greater we have to use mathematics to make sense of it).

 

And then, there is information - the basic occurrence , that information somehow seems not to be bound to matter, but being , if you will, transcendent:

We all know it's not important in which form a book or music or a picture or all knowledge is represented : You can have it encoded as grooves on a disk, on paper, as pigments on the flat remains of trees or whatever - more importantly one can encode it, and the information is just the alignment/array/arrangement of most simple structures - most simple we can comprehend are bits.

We seem to know that what we "are" is certain patterns/structures in that electrochemical machine called brain - in a way, just information. It might sound stupid, but we maybe could exist at any given moment as an "image", just like that used for restoring computer software on a disk. Our self might so be expressible as an alignment/array/arrangement - as information, not bound to be bound to specific matter or matter at all.

 

 

After all, I think science may have killed god, or more specific, our ability to be sure that there is a god: How should we recognize him ?

2000 years ago, some trickery like burning bushes or destruction of cities was enough to awe people to believe in a god - but today we know, SOMEONE could have lit that biblical bushes with CO2 lasers and applied a nuke or antimatter to that city so "it rained fire".

If today god or the Messiah came strolling by demanding that we do by his rules, how could we accept him? He could be as well be just an technologically advanced alien from outer space that has enough technological prowess to do "miracles" or even manipulate our brains.

I just don't see any possibility for "god" anymore to be accepted for sure as such - at least not while we are alive.

 

 

However, I most definitely see no point of arguing so heatedly about such matters. There has been (and is) even much bloodshed about all of this, which for us today should be considered shameful.

Philosophical stances like different religions, agnostics and atheists can easily separate people; their separative effects are however usually political motivated, and we should not fall for this, making us marionettes for crazy fundamentalist or power-hungry people.

 

The most unifying answer for that is that we all usually want the same: The (unspecific) "good" - which

is a powerful common motive.

[jdude]

God works through the universe so of course we'd have scientific explanations for why things happen. What we don't have explanations for is how many things in one's life just fall into a neatly organized convenient place all the time for some and not others.

 

@ nbohr1more

I was just providing a philosophical argument to how it would be reasonable to combine the two since the Bible doesn't say how the Earth was made and it doesn't, as some have ascertained here, say how old the Earth is either. The creationism theory is inferred from the text.

[Outlooker]

God works through the universe so of course we'd have scientific explanations for why things happen. What we don't have explanations for is how many things in one's life just fall into a neatly organized convenient place all the time for some and not others.

 

 

What do you mean ?

That health, IQ, beauty, luck, opportunity, wealth and so on are not evenly distributed, in other words, our existence seems not "fair" for most people ?

[jdude]

No. For example have you ever been in a situation where it seemed impossible to proceed yet somehow, seemingly against all odds, everything works out and you proceed through it?

 

edit: Also what some would call Luck or Karma through an entire lifetime.

[Outlooker]

No. For example have you ever been in a situation where it seemed impossible to proceed yet somehow, seemingly against all odds, everything works out and you proceed through it?

Certainly. But should that be not just luck ? In many other situation however, people fail, as it is probable.

A low chance for something to happen doesn't mean it's so special:

No one really expects to win the lottery, but to dozens of people worldwide have it happen weekly.

 

Or another weird example: Some guy here in Germany was struck by lightning this year - right in his head. Sure thing X[

one might think, but two paramedics were right there and reanimated him - half a year later that guy is almost as new !

Luck or guardian angel - such things happen naturally.

 

But I think I might know what you mean - having overcome some serious problem, against all odds, and seeing it as "help from God".

I was myself tempted to think so in some cases, but it could have been just luck.

However, I hope that it wasn't just cold heartless statistics at work but something more ... meaningful. I'd really like to have it that way, but I'm in doubt - I hope for it, but I KNOW nothing.

 

Edit: Even an entire lifetime of such luck could be just statistics - as long as very few people

have this luck. If we talk about many more or even all people having such luck, even if only in a limited timeframe, then that would be ... unusual to a degree I readily would accept a divine explanation.

Edited August 2, 2010 by Outlooker

[jdude]

So I guess your arguing that it could just be a statistic probability that this occurs to someone. Admittedly it could. But I think in certain situations things work out too good to be a coincidence. And people will argue oh well that's statistics too; but it's a matter of interpretation I think. It could just be a massive coincidence that I get what they pray in good faith for but personally I don't think so. This is where the 'faith' comes into play I suppose.