LHC Forces Bookmaker To Lower Odds On the Existence of God 457
A UK bookmaker has lowered the odds on proving that god exists to just 4-1 to coincide with the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider. The chance that physicists might discover the elusive sub-atomic object called the "God particle" has forced the odds lower. Initially the odds that proof would be found of God's existence were 20-1, and they lengthened to 33-1 when the multi-billion pound atom smasher was shut down temporarily because of a magnetic failure. A spokesman for Paddy Power said, "The atheists' planned advertising campaign seems to have renewed the debate in pubs and around office water-coolers as to whether there is a God and we've seen some of that being transferred into bets. However we advise anyone still not sure of God's existence to maybe hedge their bets for now, just in case." He added that confirmation of God's existence would have to be verified by scientists and given by an independent authority before any payouts were made. Everyone getting a payout is encouraged to tithe at least ten percent.
Independent verification (Score:4, Insightful)
Bizarro perhaps?
Re:Hahaha (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm confused. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hahaha (Score:3, Insightful)
Science can't prove that god exists, or that it doesn't exist. So it's a perfectly safe bet- it can never be won.
Re:I'm confused. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't believe, just ask (Score:1, Insightful)
- "Barrack Obama. He believes and that's good enough for me."
Anyone can say "I believe". What comes out of their mouth, however, and what they actually believe, are two different matters entirely. Note: this is not a comment directed at Barrack Obama specifically, but the blind sheep like our Anonymous Coward friend here who is willing to place trust in an unknown entity rather than their own self. Oh, wait ... I see.
Peace,
Andy.
Re:Hahaha (Score:4, Insightful)
Paddy Power [paddypower.com] is just looking for one with omnipresence.
Would this be outside the realm of science?
Pascal's Wager (Score:5, Insightful)
It's cute enough as a philosophical experiment, but the typical layman interpretation of it is just plain idiotic.
Re:Pascal's Wager (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the devil secretly killed god and took over the holy land (unholy land). And now he tortures all the catholics that pass away. Of course allowing all the atheists to go free. I call it the fuck you pascal wager. In my philosophy class i was the only one to notice the horrible fault in logic, it was depressing (only 1 person in the class was even religious anyways). Also this was touched on in the southpark movie:
.
Hell Director: Hello, newcomers and welcome. Can everybody hear me? Hello?
[taps microphone]
Hell Director: Can everybody... ok. Um, I am the Hell Director. Uh, it looks like we have 8,615 of you newbies today. And for those of you who were little confused: uh, you are dead; and this is Hell. So abbandon all hope and yadda-yadda-yadda. Uh, we are now going to start the orientation PROcess which will last about...
Protestant: Hey, wait a minute. I shouldn't be here, I was a totally strick and devout Protestant. I thought we went to heaven.
Hell Director: Yes, well, I'm afraid you are wrong.
Soldier: I was a practicing Jehovah's Witness.
Hell Director: Uh, you picked the wrong religion as well.
Man from Crowd: Well who was right? Who gets in to Heaven?
Hell Director: I'm afraid it was the Mormons. Yes, the Mormons were the correct answer.
The Damned: Awwww...
Re:Hahaha (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hahaha (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people when they talk about God have it all wrapped up with other issues, like the survival of consciousness after death, eternal reward or punishment, omnescience and omnipotence, and many others. They even have very specific definitions of those concepts in mind. For example, if they don't like the concept of God, they often assume that God, if 'He" exists, must know everything, even where knowing certain things simultaneously supposedly creates a paradox. They then point to that paradox as proof God doesn't exist. It becomes a definition problem - Is it still fair to call something God if it only knows as much as can be known, and there are things which simply can't be known? Should we refuse to call something God if it can't make a four sided triangle?
Ideas such as the soul, supernatural phenomena, gods, life after death, heaven, enlightenment, miracles, worship, omnipotence and so on, aren't monolithic. It's logically quite possible that one or more of these things could exist without the others existing at all. Whether you would want to define a being that was morally perfect, but didn't have unlimited power, as God, is a philosophical choice. (as is the reverse, a being that is morally flawed but has unlimited power). Linking all sorts of concepts together, and not defining some of those concepts, lets people engage in circular reasoning. That doesn't mean nobody has ever done better - plenty of people, both in various religions and in the great philosophies, have gone to great efforts to define terms, and avoid at least the most obvious errors.
Unfortunately 90% or more of the discussions on places such as Slashdot will be between people who haven't ever read anything by the people who have done better, and who think their latest point has never been proposed by anyone else before.
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
Erm, I really don't have time to read it all but...
"The laws of nature are omnipresent and eternal."
Where did you hear that fairytale? There is no such thing as laws of nature. Every so called law of nature is mankinds attempt to put the things mankind perceives into understandable terms. But all we have are theories. And as long as we haven't seen all there is to see of nature and the universe, they remain just theories.
Just because every time someone let go of a ball it dropped towards the earth doesn't mean this has suddenly become a law. Ever think that perhaps our perception of gravity is rather limited?
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
You make the mistake of thinking that by "disproving" some bit of dogma or scripture that you disprove "certain religions".
Religion was designed to defy proof or disproof. If you ask why a perfect God would cause a newborn infant to die of sepsis, you are told "He works in mysterious ways" or "His ways are not our ways". It's the ultimate dodge.
"The existence of God" has no objective validity, and is therefore meaningless.
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually the problem with proving God exists or does not exist with science is that you need to compare something created by God to something not created by God, examine the difference, and the difference will be God.
If God exists, all things are created by God, and there is no difference between the two objects. If God does not exist, neither object was created by God and there is no difference between the two objects.
Either way, you have no observable difference between the two objects.
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting post, and you bring up some really good discussion points.
"One with omnipresence would be easy to prove. What would be accepted as proof of God ? There are more than enough structures in space that are omnipresent ... The gravity field of, well, anything, is by definition omnipresent (even though it's not so at every last moment in time, it's just everywhere any human will ever go, or even any photon that will ever touch a human). The laws of nature are omnipresent and eternal. Force carrying particle fields are omnipresent and eternal, ... If you only need a "mechanical" God, the bet is won already."
One needs to be very careful when saying "prove" or any conjugation of the word. Unfortunately the main problem - one that many people, even scientists, ignore - is called the problem of induction (you can learn about it in any Philosophy 101 class), which says that one cannot prove something based on prior experiences (i.e. it's possible that you're prior experiences can lead you to the wrong conclusion). If you forget about the problem of induction, you may be a turkey (Every day, the turkey gets fed by the farmer, and grows to believe that the farmer is a good guy and is looking out for the turkey's best interest. Then one day, right around Thanksgiving ...). Science is based on faith that the laws of nature are omnipresent and universal (they might be), because if they aren't then science fails. It is possible that the laws of nature change on a nonlinear/discontinuous function that appears to be constant on the limited timescale of human existence, but changes dramatically -or even slightly - sometime in the future. It is also possible that if there is an omnipotent god, that He(she/it) might decide to change the laws of nature just to fuck with us.
There is a lot more I could say about the problem of induction, but entire books have been written on the subject, and I'm spent. So on to a new topic.
On Buddhism you say:
"you can check buddhism : since the world only exists as part of the mind of people, it is not possible for people to cause accidents due to "not knowing" something, since they know about the entire world. So dig a hold in the sidewalk, camouflage it, and if someone falls into it you're sure buddhism is wrong."
You are confusing buddhism with solipsism: the view that the existence of anything external to your own mind is questionable, at best. So, yes you can easily prove solipsism wrong.
Buddhists don't really believe in a god; in fact, there are many Buddhists who are practicing members of other religions as well. The four main beliefs of Buddhism are the following (from Wikipedia):
Re:Hahaha (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Omnipotence is problematic. The famous example is "Is it possible for an omnipotent creature to create a rock so heavy that he can not lift it?". Both answers would mean he's not omnipotent. So that makes all such religions look.. well.. PLAIN STUPID.
Really, even if there was a God, and there's about as much evidence supporting that as there is of the existance of the unicorn, I would not bow to him. In fact, I would tell him to fuck off, and leave me alone. Really, I would hate to spend my life worshipping some narcistic prick. Please, just get over it.
Nothing good will come from this... (Score:3, Insightful)
Chances are, the only time we'll find out for certain is when we die. We'll wake up in heaven, hell, purgatory or whatever realm the dead go to, or... we won't. At that point, what does it matter?
Thing is, if I had a bit of spare cash to make it worthwhile, I'd place a bet on God's existence.
The "big rock" paradox is nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a silly argument. The response of C.S. Lewis was that omnipotence does not mean "ability to do things that are inherently impossible." A square circle is a non-thing, therefore even an omnipotent God cannot make it. Nonsense doesn't become sense just because you insert the words 'God can'.
If something is logically possible, an omnipotent God could do it. And we may guess incorrectly about what's possible. But what you're doing is knocking down straw men. The God you're disproving is the one of childish belief.
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually it's a basic assumption of science. Let's put it like this : I accept that you don't believe in science, and you stop using things that were built with that science. Your clothes, your car, your computer, ... you all quit those and I will no accept this statement. After all it's merely an "assumption" that your cell phone can even work, so why have it at all ?
If you don't stop using the accomplishments of science, however, you're a hypocrite for not accepting it's assumptions as true.
Re:The "big rock" paradox is nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
What's 'inherently impossible' about either outcome of creating the 'big rock'? I can either 'create' a rock that's too heavy for me to lift, or my lifting abilities exceed my 'heavy rock creation' abilities. Both outcomes are perfectly possible - there are no logical contradictions.
What the paradox likely demonstrates is that the concept of 'omnipotence' as we typically understand the word is internally inconsistent.
Alright I just can't take it anymore (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Proving God sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
The universe does not need a god to exist, nothing that happens in the universe required a god to make it happen, and nothing that I do requires a god to tell me whether or not it is good or bad. Saying 'I don't understand this, therefore therefore a god did it' is not a valid argument. It's like saying 'I don't know what made those lights in the sky, therefore it's an alien spacecraft'. No it doesn't, all it means is you don't know.
I find it quite humorous that religious people cannot accept that on a billions of worlds for billions of years, that a certain type of randomness caused life to arise. (Any life, btw, not this specific one. Using statistics to show this life is highly unlikely is an improper use of statistics. And it's not totally random chance, creationists claiming this have never bothered to study evolution theory and understand it.) But they are willing to believe in an all knowing, all seeing entity that has created this entire universe of unimaginable size, stuck us in a non-descript corner that is completely insignificant, all by ourselves, and is interested in our daily activities and our souls. Yet this same all-knowing, all-powerful entity can't come up with a decent communication skill to prove that it exists so we stop killing ourselves over which is the right belief. It either doesn't exist, or doesn't care. Or our belief is irrelevant. Which means it is irrelevant.
Once it was shown there was no need for the 'ether' to support radio waves, ether no longer existed. It wasn't necessary to prove ether didn't exist, only to show there was no need for it, and the non-existence of ether made more sense.
Re:Hahaha (Score:3, Insightful)
I spent years of my life, mostly from fifteen onwards, in a very intense study of God, morality, and I spent my time to the best of my ability trying to improve myself to help lead others to God. While trying to find these "proofs" of God I concluded there was no God. Having lost my faith at twenty it came with no little trauma. I do not, however, believe that people who have studied the concept of "God" less than me are able to rationally conclude there is no God.
I would not say that someone who only has a cursory understanding of Greek myths is not rationally able to dismiss them as false. You do not have to be an expert in on bullshit to know when you smell it. I dismissed the Greek myths because there is no evidence, I dismiss fairies because there is no evidence, I dismiss spirits, ghosts, etc. because there is no evidence.
When I was finally able to start at zero and try to see God in the real world, without religious texts, with only the natural world to guide me, I saw no evidence. I must dismiss ancient religions for their lack of evidence, and so I dismiss "God" for the same. The people who dismiss God without being experts in the debate are not wrong. They are simply doing the same thing you do when you dismiss the thousands of deities you know little or nothing about.
If you want to hold everyone to this standard of having actually studied it in depth before dismissing it, then I suggest you dedicate the rest of your life to studies the tens of thousands of deities there are, and after this intense study which will consume your entire life, then you can rant about how atheist haven't done enough to study your god.
Laws of Nature do exist (Score:3, Insightful)
"There is no such thing as laws of nature. Every so called law of nature is mankinds attempt to put the things mankind perceives into understandable terms."
Just because our efforts to codify the laws of nature are not yet perfect does not mean that there are no laws of nature. If we follow your logic then nothing exists because all we observe is just our senses turning what they perceive into understandable terms.