Subject: Re: THE FIVE PERCENT GOD
In the far distant future a group of scientists will announce to all Mankind, "We have made a major break through! We have communicated with a Force which informs us that It is the Being that brought this Universe into being".
They will then give us the bad news. "In an even more complex Universe, a young Being was playing with what we might call his chemistry set. He mixed up several ingredients and, Poof! our Universe was formed. Since he had been told not to mix chemicals without parental guidance, he has been afraid to admit to his mistake. But now things are out of hand and his parents are about to "put out the fire".
The End.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----From: Alice Dampman HumelSent: Thursday, March 28, 2013 7:20 AMSubject: Re: THE FIVE PERCENT GODMiriam,I don't think that is the case…it's not that an agnostic does not have the "courage of his convictions, " it is that his "conviction" is that it is unknowable and impossible to prove whether God exists or not. That is the primary component of agnosticism as I see it.Alice
On Mar 27, 2013, at 1:37 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
If you're right, you're an atheist, but you don't have the courage of your
convictions, just like most other people who call themselves agnostics.
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 11:30 AM
To: Blind Democracy Discussion List
Subject: Re: THE FIVE PERCENT GOD
Roger, please never leave this list. I am absolutely enchanted by your
explanations. On the one hand, you cause me to think, an exercise we should
all be doing daily, and on the other hand, as you march step by step through
your logical explanations, I find myself grinning from ear to ear.
You are about the most methodical thinker I've met in a long time.
Nonetheless, I am going to continue to call myself an Agnostic. At least
until I stumble upon a better word. I place no percentages on whether God
exists in any form, or not. I simply see no way of proving that which
cannot be measured.
As I've said before, I believe that God had to be invented to answer
unanswerable questions that troubled Man.
If I'm right, then there is no room for a 5% or 50% possibility of some sort
of God.
Of course Believers everywhere will tell me that I'm wrong, that God does
exist, and that He created Man. They are 100% positive that they are right.
But they have 0% proof.
They would be better off trying to prove that the Easter Bunny exists. At
least they can show the numbers of colored eggs that mysteriously appear
hidden on Easter Day. Some might argue that the eggs were placed there by
Mom and Dad, while others would say that a Rabbit came around during the
night. The young child can't prove either claim. All they can see are the
eggs tucked in open hiding. And a big basket of tooth decay sitting at the
end of their beds.
When the children grow wiser, they figure out just what is going on.
But our Universe is so vast and time is so eternal that we may never become
wise enough to figure it all out. So until then, I say we can't prove the
unprovable.
Carl Jarvis(the Agnostic)
----- Original Message -----
From: Roger Loran Bailey <mailto:rogerbailey81@aol.com>
To: Blind Democracy Discussion List
<mailto:blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 7:50 AM
Subject: THE FIVE PERCENT GOD
I am just getting on my computer for the first time today and I have
not
yet checked my email. Since I have an off line life it will be some
time
before I do check it too, but I have been thinking about Bob's post
about estimating a five percent probability of a god and I feel
compelled to add to my response to him. First, Let's look at how an
estimate of five percent probability is established. To
estimate a
five percent probability it is necessary to run at least twenty
trials.
Since we are talking about looking for an event that would be the
existence of a creator of the universe then each trial would consist
of
examining a universe and either detecting a god or not detecting
one. If
you looked at twenty universes and found nineteen of them without a
god
and one with a god then you could estimate that the probability of
finding a god for the next one was five percent. Twenty is the
minimum
though. If you examined a hundred universes and found five gods or
if
you examined a thousand universes and found fifty gods then your
estimate of five percent would be a more and more accurate estimate
and
your degree of confidence in that estimate would increase. In order
to
speak of a probability, though, you must have not examined the
universe
that you are estimating a five percent probability of a god for. I
suppose that is this universe. So why do you not examine this
universe
using the same techniques that you used for the other minimum of
twenty
universes and then you could establish a certainty of either a god
or no
god for this universe? Then, have you examined any universes at all?
The
traditional definition of the word universe is everything. That
would
leave you with only one universe to examine at all. It means that
you
only get one trial and you either find one or you don't find one and
so
you either establish a one hundred percent probability or you
establish
a zero probability if your method is unambiguous. If you do not have
an
unambiguous method for detecting a god and you find no evidence of a
god
then you are back at a probability of one in infinity and that
amounts
to zero. Now, there are some cutting edge physicists who propose the
existence of parallel universes. They are really only revising the
definition of the word universe. They posit the existence of
something
that they call the multiverse that contains all of the universes. In
the
way they use those words they are only calling everything the
multiverse
and the word universe is demoted to something less than everything.
This
still remains only a proposal though. It is based on the behavior of
certain subatomic particles and a mathematical model. They have not
actually detected or examined another universe. Have you found a way
to
examine the other universes in the multiverse? If you have I would
be
interested in learning about your technique and you will be looking
at a
Nobel prize. Then, if you have found a way to examine the various
universes in the multiverse, what technique do you use to detect a
god
for these universes? That would be worthy of a nobel prize too. If,
on
the other hand, you have examined only the universe in which you
reside
then what technique do you use to establish a that five percent
probability and why does it not establish the existence of a god one
way
or another? Is it that it is unreliable and you must run a trial on
the
same universe many times? Does it show the existence of a god only
one
time out of twenty times you use it. I suppose that there are many
unreliable techniques around that might produce results like that in
a
number of fields, but it would be very useful to look closely at the
technique and see if there is a way to refine it to make it more
reliable. The real question is, how do you determine that five
percent
probability of a god? I will tell you what I suspect and if I am
wrong
then I would be very interested in knowing what your method really
is
and that could also be a basis for a nobel prize. I suspect that you
are
just pulling the five percent figure out of thin air. If that is the
case then the figure has no more meaning than the implied
probability of
fifty percent that most agnostics advocate with actually giving
figures.
If that is the case also, then I would expect that you will try to
justify your figure with arguments like, I just feel it or I just
think
it or it just seems that way to me. In other words, you would be
using
the very same arguments that the proponents of a hundred percent
probability use and it would be just as valid, that is, not valid at
all. Unless you can produce a god detector or at least some way that
a
god detector would work, that is, a falsifiable theory of god that
can
be tested, you are right back to making an assertion with no
supporting
evidence and it will be only one of the set of assertions that have
no
support and that set numbers a total of infinity. That is, the
assertion
of a five percent probability of the existence of a god would have
exactly the probability of being true as the assertion that there is
a
hundred percent probability of a god, one in infinity.
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