(I've changed his name to Bob Vance)
Bob Vance
I know (not believe) that God exists.Seth GarrettBob Vance
-How I know God exist - ----------------------------P(God) = 1.00 - P(Every experience is a coincidence)List of personal experiences with estimated probabilities#1 - Age 4-8 Memorized scriptures - felt inspired and able to fully understand the truth in each verse my mind was enlightened and expanded by the words. P(God #1) = 1% God, 99% coincidence#2 - Age 4-6 Sometimes I would lose my toys. After I would pray to find them, I would find them immediately. Quantity of instances 3+ P(God#2a) = 10%, 90% coincidence P(God#2b) = 10%, 90% coincidence P(God#2c) = 10%, 90% coincidence#3 - Age 5 Five members of my family were looking for a small object for 60 minutes + None of us could find it. We combed the house twice. After we all gathered for a family prayer, I was able to find it immediately afterwards. Two events happened at the same time - Event(find object) and Event(pray). A simple probability model could say that within the timeframe of 60 minutes, there are 60 open slots for either event. The probability that both events happened within the same minute would be 1/60 * 1/60 = 1/360 That is less likely to happen than to pray "Please bless this coin to land on heads 8 times in a row" and have it succeed.Not very likely to happen randomly. But hey, anything is possible. P(God#3) = 20%, 80% coincidence#4 - Age 8 The spirit guided me to return home at the same time that my family had gathered together in prayer because they were looking for me and thought they had lost me. Again, very unlikely. I had no idea that my family was praying for me, but I felt a strong urge to go home, despite my more selfish urges to stay outside. Event(weird urge to go home) = 1 / 1000 times playing outside Event(family prays to find me) = 1 / 1000 prayers. The fact that these two events coincided at exactly the same time? 1/1000 * 1/1000 = 1 / 1,000,000 But hey, lets be reasonable! Coincidences happen! P(God#4) = 70%, 30% coincidence#5 - Age 3 When I was 3 my mom had me and my brother Sam. My mom was curious about how many children she would have. She prayed. Immediately after the prayer, I stopped playing with my toys and walked over to her and said, "Mommy, you are going to have five babies." and then I went back to my toys. Event(Child leaves toys to talk to mommy) - 1/10 times playing with toys Event(Child says something) - 1,000 random possibilities Event(Mommy's question) - 1,000 random possibilites Event(random words predict future) - 1 / 1000 This scenario alone shows that the probability of things playing out this way is extremely rare. The fact that what I said matched up to her question is 1 / 1,000,000. The fact that what I said actually came true makes it even more extraordinary at 1 / 1,000,000,000 But hey coincidences happen. P(God) = 99% , 1% coincidence#6 - Age 9 My parents were trying to decide which house to move into. The "red" house or the "white" house. The red house was bigger with more bathrooms, but the white house was near the Brysons and the Halls. My parents asked us to pray if God would help us make a decision on where to move. My always said my prayers but had never asked a question like this before. I opened my prayer like normal, but before I could finish asking the question, the answer to my question came like a revelatory bolt of lightning to my brain. It felt like the words were downloaded from heaven to my consciousness. The words came faster than I could think on my own. I heard the words saying, "Is a toilet going to stop you from being with your family?"At that time I consciously knew that I had received a revelation from God. I knew that it was not my own head speaking. It was a completely new cognitive experience. There was zero doubt in my mind that God was real after this experience.After I heard these words I felt a strong urge to write them down before I forgot them. I left the note on my dresser. In the morning my parents say the note and were so impressed that they didn't need an explanation from me because they knew that those were the words of God. Needless to say, we moved into the "white" house.E(prayer contains random question) - 1 / 1000 possibilities P(Head randomly comes up with a response to questions) - 90% likely P(responses impresses adults to think it is from God) - 1% likely P(Head thinks faster than it is able to) - 0.1 % likely P(Head experiences a new cognitive feeling like lightning) - 0.1% likely P( Reasonable person is 100% convinced that God spoke to them) - 0.1 % likelyMultiplying all of the probabilities (ignoring the Event) it comes out to 0.000000000009 which is equal to 1 / 1 1 1, 1 1 1, 1 1 1, 1 1 1 Very unlikely to happen randomly. But we will give coincidence the benefit of the doubt.P(God) - 99%, 1% coincidenceThis is just the first 10 years of my life. P(Every experience is a coincidence) = .99 * .90 * .90 * .90 * .80 * .30 * .01 * .01 = 0.000017321 P(God) = 99.999982679% It was at this point in my life that I became convinced of myself that I "knew" God was real.- Friday
Julia Helen LoweVery interesting math.However, I don't see the logical connection between an event occurring, and a human shaped omnipotent being existing. What you've calculated there is the probability of all those events happening exactly way they did. And yes, the probability of all that happening is extremely unlikely. It would be very unlikely for those exact events to recreate themselves somewhere else in the universe. But that calculation has nothing to do with a specific idea of an anthropomorphic father-like deity. You applied that conception to your math because that was the idea you were given to believe, and you work to prove that it is true, because that is your desire.- Bob Vance
- No, you are reading more out of what I claimed that was actually said. I only claimed that I "knew" God existed, commonly defined as an intelligent power greater than us. Although my experiences don't necessarily prove that he is a male father, I view it as highly probable because multiple events show that this "God" responses to prayer addressing "God" as a "heavenly father".
- Julia Helen LoweAn intelligent power greater than us isn't the common definition of God. An alien species could be an intelligent power greater than human beings, but unless they are directly in charge of/watching/meddling with our planet, they are not our gods. If I had to place a bet, I'd personally bet that there ARE greater intelligences in our universe, but I don't find my good fortune, or any person's good fortune, a reason to believe that they are meddling in our affairs.
- Bob Vance
- sorry i meant a supernatural intelligence greater than our ownthat has a supernatural power greater than our own -
- Julia Helen LoweYou're saying that because a few fortunate events occurred in close chronology with a spiritual act, the spiritual act must have a causal relationship with the event.However, a very religious person will perform spiritual acts so frequently, that it is to be expected that in the course of decades, a few of these acts will coincide with the outcome that you desire/are looking for.
- Julia Helen LoweMore frequently, however, these spiritual acts pass by without any fortunate events. If you could count the number of times a devout religious person prays against the number of times they got the sign they were looking for, I imagine it would not be statistically significant. Also, if you were to conduct a randomized study on prayers vrs non prayers and recorded the number of times an event appears fortunate/remarkable, the data would be almost identical, certainly not statistically significant.Every person experiences these unlikely events, whether you are praying or not. That's because unlikely events happen all the time in this universe, but we're programmed to estimate probabilities in our minds automatically. When an event strikes our programming as highly improbable, it feels to us like a "miracle"
- Julia Helen LoweI would LOVE to see a study done on a large number of people of the same socioeconomic class and similar lifestyle, half pray to God, half are completely unreligious, and see if the number of times a religious person feels god helped them is significantly greater than how many times the secular feel lucky. Why had no one done that?? Maybe they have... I'm gunna look it up
- Bob Vance
- I know what you are saying but there is no pray event that can be correlated with the fortunate event in a non-religious household so there will probably not be any significant feeling of luck. Without prayer, people find things when they find them. Lucky would imply they always find things quickly. But that is not the case for either demographic. The difference will be that when the non-religious person is willing to give up, the religious person turns to prayer. That behavioral factor alone could increase the success of "finding" among religious people, but there is more to it than just a behavioral change. There has to be a supernatural component because there is no natural reason why you would find things "immediately" after prayer. Prayer skeptics say, "Well its because your mind is thinking clearer when you stop and think for prayer." But according to my experience, the prayer does not help you "clearly think" of where it is. The finding event is completely random, which means subconscious guidance was involved.
- Plenty of people have guidance at the subconscious level and some have guidance at a conscious level. Many mormons have stories that play out similar to this - 1) mormon is traveling one direction, 2) spiritual inner voice tells them to stop/ change directions, 3) mormon tries to ignore inner voice because it doesnt make sense, 4) feeling/voice consistently warns the mormon 3 times, 5) mormon finally gives in and listens, 6) following the guidance saves their life from an unseen danger. This obviously shows that "God" exists. Where does this higher intelligence come from if not God?
- and supernatural feelings and thoughts that answer your questions better than you could come up with? those must come from "God"answers to questions that accurately predict the future? again - God is the only good answeri haven't even got to burning in the bosom, healings, gift of tongues and demons yet.sure maybe humanity evolved a "God" cortex of the brain that can think supernaturally, but I think that God's existence is a much better answer than that onea "God" cortex of the brain can only explain away some things. It can't explain away burning in the bosom, healings, gift of tongues and demons.
- Julia Helen LoweI can provide explanations for each of those, actually.
- Julia Helen LoweI've learned a lot about what the human body can experience without any outside stimulus, purely through the brain. I won't go into it because it's really personal, so never mind.Everything has an explanation. Because this universe strictly follows rules. If there is a mystery, it's simply because a sensible explanation has not been found yet. Some may not be within our reach to ever find, actually, but the reason still exists. Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be NOT magic.
- Julia Helen LoweIf there is something going on here, if people are somehow getting access to wisdom, then something REAL is happening. It could be that encoded in our dna are stores of information from our ancient ancestors. Or maybe our epigenetics were influenced by the last few generations, and we're getting wisdom from our grandparents. Or maybe somehow conscious minds can access a collective source of information. Or maybe your neurons fired perfectly randomly (the way neurons do) and jumped to a correct conclusion, which is one of the coolest, most powerful part of our brains. Whatever it is, it's something that makes sense. The idea that an outside entity is consciously giving you information is just one idea in a sea of ideas. Maybe someone's been stalking you your whole life, setting up these scenarios to trick you (ridiculous of course, but you see what I'm saying. There are actually NUMEROUS possible explanations, but you spend your energy defending only one, because not believing it is too great a sacrifice for you. To lose your faith would be losing to much, so you're not willing to go there)
- Julia Helen LoweSorry for all the grammatical errors, not editing
- Bob Vance
- Im an honest person. I don't think that my belief in God is based on a dependence upon the social structure related to that explanation. I believe that God existing is the BEST explanation. In my opinion, none of your alternative explanations are even close to this one as a reasonable explanation for why the universe is the way it is. The existence of a God makes way more sense than a collective knowledge source (which I view as the second best explanation you have offered). 1) collective knowledge source doesn't explain creation, the source of intelligences/spirits, the existence or good and evil, nor miracles, nor healing, nor demons, nor prophesy. 2) collective knowledge source when compared with God's existence is equally supernatural and no more likely to be true than God actually existing.
- 3) a collective source of information doesn't explain our purpose. If we area all taping into collective information, why does it "tap" into us? It would make sense that in dire circumstances our brain can be triggered to activate this "collective information" function, but how does the collective information foresee danger before the individual is aware that there is a dire circumstance and project a thought upon the individual against their will? It is obvious that this "collective source of information" It has an intelligence of its own.
- Sunday
- Julia Helen LoweYou are right, that explanation doesn't make much sense. I wouldn't place a bet on it. I do however find the probability that a fully formed complex being popping into existence unlikely. A single point of energy though.... Still crazy to pop into existence, but not nearly as improbable as a complex organism being the beginning of everything. Does that make sense? Even if there are superior aliens or something "in charge" of our world, they arose from the same point of energy... I guess what I'm saying is that even if there is some sort of "god" living in our universe, it probably didn't create the universe it's in. Meaning god isn't really god in the traditional sense. If a godlike creature living in this universe DID create it, then it existed before the universe existed. Explaining why God would exist in the first place is a much more difficult question than how a point of energy might arise through a moment of quantum weirdness. The truth is, it's all the same question: why does ANYTHING exist at all? Saying, "because, god." is just the same question once removed, except way more complicated. Ok, but then where does God come from? You run into an infinite digress, and the question actually becomes much harder to answer.Given all that, I think simulation theory is the best explanation for the possibility of "god". I may even place a bet on simulation theory, I like it. Though it still runs into the infinite digress problem, which irks my logical mind. Though of course I have to admit that just because it bothers my logical mind doesn't mean it's not true. I don't know anything. Nobody knows, KNOWS exactly how it works yet. And I'm ok with that. The joy of science is in continual discovery, why try hard to learn if you already have it all figured out. Anyone that says they "know" something currently unknowable is cutting themselves off from discovering other avenues of truth and possibilities. Because if information contradicts what you "know", pride will have you discount whatever it is, or twist the information to fit the world view you have chosen/publicly declared your certainty of. Far better to be open, than certain. Much better to adjust your beliefs based on what's observed, than to deny observation so that faith can be preserved.
- Julia Helen LoweBtw, this conversation is so epic! I feel like we should post it somewhere, haha. Thank you thank you, I love a mormon who will actually debate me, I need the mental stimulation
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