I’m reminded of a story told in one of Bennett Cerf’s books.
Albert Einstein was seated next to some entertainer at a banquet. I don’t recall who it was, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it weren’t Groucho Marx. Or Oscar Levant.
Whoever it was, he asked Einstein, “Tell me, professor, is this mathematics racket really on the level?”
But most religious people don’t profit financially from their religion. And most atheists don’t either. And those who do aren’t necessarily doing anything wrong. Should a minister not earn a salary? Shouldn’t an author be paid for a book?
What is the alternative? Going by someone else’s perception of what is right? And how do you come to the conclusion that you should do that? You perceive that it is the right thing to do? It’s always about personal perception.
Why do you refer only to the deaths of six million? Just curious. (It doesn’t matter in your argument.)
newscrasher, I don’t see anything in your OP that doesn’t describe my own beliefs for the last 25 years or so. Yet I would think that I am more spiritually “centered” now that I was when I was a religious education major. I still refer to myself as a Christian, but I think that the Christ embraces more than I dreamed possible before. (I also read material from other religious faiths.)
I’ve never regretted the shift in my beliefs. I couldn’t have helped it anyway, but so much makes more sense!
Yes, given an eternity to work with, anything that is possible will happen. If it doesn’t eventually happen, it is impossible in the first place.
If it doesn’t happen this time around, it’ll happen the next time. If you truly understand what “eternity” means, you realize that, outside of the absolutely impossible, probability doesn’t indicate the chances of something happening at all, but how frequently it happens. The unremarkable happens every minute. The next-to-impossible may only happen on an average of once every two or three universal cycles, but it will happen.
Of course, this presupposes that any of the 999 gods don’t screw up the math with an eternal Valhalla or something similar.
Let me nitpick this statement (a pet peeve of mine, I suppose) into something more bulletproof:
Sure, even if X is possible, there might be an eternity in which X never happens. A thing might never happen and yet not be impossible. But, if X has some particular positive probability (no matter how small) of occurring at each of infinitely many independent trials which occur over the course of eternity, then, with probability 1, X eventually occurs. Probability 1 doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed, but it’s exceedingly excessively awesomely <adverbially> likely.
If X is at all possible, you cannot have an eternity in which X never happens-what you have is an eternity where X hasn’t happened yet. The funny thing about eternity is that it lasts a looong time.
Though I agree with you in terms of the overarching debate here (a probability of 1 is a damn fine probability, more than good enough for practical purposes), I gave the correct nitpick. It’s certainly logically possible for, say, an unrigged coin to come up heads now, tomorrow, forever, and always into eternity. The probability of this is 0, but it’s still not logically impossible. (And, correspondingly, the probability of getting tails eventually is 1, but it’s still not logically guaranteed).
I guess I might concede that point, if you can tell me what those odds might be?
Could you tell me within, say, a thousand zeros? A million? A million million? If the odds cannot be figured at all, how can you then say that an event is not impossible?
Er, perhaps I misunderstand what you want, but I thought I gave you the odds with my mentions of probabilities? If you have a fair coin, the probability of flipping heads forever into eternity with no tails is a perfect 0, but all the same not impossible. How can I say that the event is not impossible despite having the same number for a probability as impossible events? Well, that’s a semantic point, perhaps, but we generally accept that a probability of 0 is not always the same thing as impossibility (“Wow, the random angle I chose turned out to be exactly 84.69846098639… degrees.” “Hey, what are the odds?” “Well, I guess that had a probability of exactly 0, just like every other particular angle. And yet it was still possible, clearly.”). That’s just a fact about the conventional theory of probability. I equate impossibility with logical inconsistency (understood, in this context, relative to whatever background physical theory you’re working with), and, on those grounds, I say flipping heads forever is not impossible.
I’ll have to think on that overnight. Something with a probability of “0” not being an impossibility? This one is gonna take at least 2 Arrogant Bastard ales and a shot of Tully to get through.
The probability for the coin thing isn’t zero, it’s just very, very low.
Yeah, keeping the notions of “probability of zero” and “impossible” separate is a common stumbling block for getting to proper grips with the theory of probability. I was hoping I could find a good website to link to to make it all manifestly clear, but it’s not as one-click easy as I thought it would be, somehow. Up at the top of this in small font is some mention of my point, as there is also here. Those serve as cites, I suppose, but I don’t know how good they are pedagogically. Still, I think the example with the random angle should maybe make it clear.
In the conventional mathematical formulation of the theory of probability, it is in fact exactly zero. The probability of getting all heads in the first N flips is 1/2^N. The probability of getting all heads forever is the limit of this as N goes to infinity, which is 0.
Eh, that second site I linked to in the above post has some small inaccuracies (or, perhaps, misleadingly worded statements) of its own, and is more confusing than helpful. So stick to the first one.
Wikipedia has some discussion of the distinction between “probability of 1” and “sure thing”
Well, yes, I suppose both profit. But one is an organization and one is an individual, who profits in the same way other individuals do. However, one is based in fact and one is based in … nothing. One profit is earned honestly. The other relies on brainwashing young minds.
Well, IYHO,
I know there’s no real comparison. We had a preacher just dripping gold chains come in the other day and start going on about how he needed to do business with someone who would give him a great deal for the Lord.
The organizations are made up of individuals. Some are sincere in trying to serve their fellow man and some aren’t. Then there’s the religious authors and the Christian music industry. Again, some are sincere and some are not.
Well, obviously it’s my opinion. I personally have a hard time with the whole concept of tithing. Belief is one thing. Telling someone they need to support others’ lifestyles (sometimes lavish ones) in order to be a good member of the church is another thing altogether.
It’s just that your generalization was so sweeping.
Of course if you want a building to meet in that needs to be supported like any club.
I saw someone on TV yesterday talking about how you should only give your hard earned dollars to a church that really preached Christ resurrected and the only way to salvation. Turns out they qualified. What a surprise.
I don’t have a problem with supporting the message if thats what you believe but too often it’s really a money machine before all else.
The church I used to go to had a clergy that was for the most part working men who received no pay. The Bahai have no clergy at all and that’s part of why I like it.
Now I can get behind that. I think all churches could do the same thing, and I don’t think they really need churches anyway. They could meet at each others homes or pay “admission” at a rented hall or what have you. I just find the “organized” aspect of religion to be unnecessary and indirectly promotes separation from the rest of the world. The do-gooder aspect of religion can be achieved individually, as well. Belief and personal understanding is all that counts, when you get down to it. It shouldn’t matter if others do or don’t agree with you. At the end of the day, there is no group; it’s only you and your belief.
The heat death of the universe is pretty much the eternal end. But lets go with what you state, given enough time everything that can happen will this means:
There will be a duplicate person exactly the same as you Czarcasm somewhere in the universe(s) doing the exact same thing, exact not only on the genetic level, but down to the last atom, and quantum state of that atom on a exact copy of the earth orbiting the exact copy of the sun, again exact to the quantum level. And not just a single copy but a infinite number of exact copies.
Another way to disprove this theory, which atheists like to hang their hat on is given a infinite number of roulette wheels spinning a infinite number of times, according to the theory there are some of the wheels that will never ever ever throughout eternity come up with #26. But given the same theory any roulette with a infinite number of spins will not only come up with every number but a equal distribution of all numbers.
There are some things so unlikely as they will never happen without help.