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From: beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (JB)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.origins
Subject: The Likelihood of Existence
Message-ID: <1261@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Oct-85 19:37:28 EST
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1261
Posted: Wed Oct 30 19:37:28 1985
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[This is likely to be gone by now.]

From: ln63fac@sdcc7.UUCP (Rick Frey), Message-ID: <139@sdcc7.UUCP>:
>Just for the sake of asking, what is 'unlikely' about God existing?

The likelihood of existence strikes me as a bizarre notion.  100
years ago how likely was it that any particular black hole existed?
How likely is it now?  For Native Americans in the 1500's, how likely
was it that Australia existed?  How likely is it now?  After we find
answers to those questions, I'll ask the big one:  So what?

Admittedly, I've always been a bit befuddled by probability stuff, but
likelihood only seems reasonable to me when it deals with recurrent
events like rain, and not with the existence or non-existence of a
particular object like Australia...or God.  Am I befuddled again, or is
the likelihood of God's existence as meaningless, and hence useless, a
notion as I think it is?

-- 

--JB         (Beth Christy, U. of Chicago, ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!beth)

"I once heard the remainder of a colony of ants, which had been partially
 obliterated by a cow's foot, seriously discussing the intentions of the
 gods towards their civilization."   -- Archy the Cockroach