sola scriptura

[WolfVanZandt]

Whoa! You really need to go take a statistics class. The probability of any particular event happening is infinitesimal. It's not 10E-10 - it's not even 10E-1000 - it's infinitesimal. Get an elementary statistics textbook and read it - or something.

I'm talking basic statistics theory here - I'm not speculating.

[AllanS]

[Robert]

[Robert]

[WolfVanZandt]

You are quite mistaken. The chances, if you toss a fair coin, of it coming up heads is 0.5, but that's not a real event because real events aren't isolated like that. The chances of a real event - you particularly, tossing a particular coin at a particular time and place and it coming up heads is infinitesimal - because it becomes an instintaneous event in a continuous distribution and, unlike discrete events, particular continuous events are infinitely improbable unti they occur.

And an intelligent God wouldn't decide, "I am going to cause 1 miracle for every 10 persons." A mechanical God would. An intelligent God would have reasons for causing miracles, therefore, they would fall into the category of infinitely imporbable events (until they happened).

Look, this is basic. Every statistics text I've ever seen (including my Finite Math textbook from college that just happens to have a section in probability) goes over it. Instead of arguing with me, just get a statistics text and rea the section (usually chapter 1, 2, or 3) on probability. I'll be glad to recommend a few good ones if you wish.

Or, if you really want me to, I'll give you a brief tutoral using, say, a normal process (or a Poisson process, whichever you wish) to explain why it is the way it is. (Do you understand integration?)

[AllanS]

I've a degree in pure mathematics, amongst other things, but it lies so far into ancient history I've all but forgotten it.

I think we're talking at cross-purposes.

This is what I hear you saying: Judging from what's happened in the past, the chance of a miracle happening to me or to anyone else, is infinitesimal, so close to zero as no matter. In other words, miracles don't happen.

You don't believe that and neither do I. I actually think miracles happen to nearly everyone. They just don't notice.

For God does speak—now one way, now another—
though man may not perceive it.

15 In a dream, in a vision of the night,
when deep sleep falls on men
as they slumber in their beds,

16 he may speak in their ears
and terrify them with warnings,

17 to turn man from wrongdoing
and keep him from pride,

18 to preserve his soul from the pit,
his life from perishing by the sword.

The chance of a specific miracle happening to a specific person at a specific time and place is small, I agree. But by looking at the past, we can imply things about the future, doing silly things like estimating the probability I'll be raised from the dead sometime in my life (or should I say 'sometime in my death'?)

If I put every possible event in a hat and draw one out at random, the chance that I'll draw out "AllanS is raised from the dead" would be infinitesimal. In our case in point, however, the events cannot be separated so neatly one from another since they're tied together in God's mind. Also, I'm not drawing at random. In practice, I can only pull out events that relate directly to me.

It's like an observer saying: "A certain Grandmother has 20 grandchildren. I notice that every year, ten of them get a present at Christmas. There seems to be no pattern of preference. This has happened without fail for the past 20 years. From this, I suggest an hypothesis: Grandma gives out 10 presents every Christmas at random. I can't be certain of this, of course. Grandma might well have reasons of her own. But I suspect the chance a particular child will get a present this year is 50%."

[WolfVanZandt]

No, you still don't get it. The probability of you having the height of 5' 7", or of you eating chili tonight for supper, or of a miracle happening is exactly the same before the fact. They are all infinitely improbable. But you may well be 5' 7" and you might eat chili tonight - in the same way, a miracle might happen to you tonight.

The reason they are so improbable is not that there is anything intrinsically impossible about them but simply because they are particular events. All particular events are infinitely improbable.

[AllanS]

Could you explain your point in terms of my little parable about Grandma?

[Josh]

[Josh]

[Josh]

[WolfVanZandt]

Grandma, all things being equal, xan ve expected to give out presents so that there is a .5 chance that any child will get a present - but Grandma's getting old. Will she even be alive next Christmas. In fact, what are the chances that a particular child will survive until next Christmas. Then, if we're talking about reality, this is a very complex issue. Is she really giving gifts randomly. Again, she might have a windfall and have enough money to give them all gifts for once. But there's another thing - you're speaking fromprior knowledge.

I'm talking about the probability that there is a grandma such as you describe and that the event will take place as you describe it next Christmas - what's the probability of that?

If I know that there is a dice and it will be tosses and it is a fair dice under fair conditions, then I can confidently say that there is a 1:6 chance that it will come up a 4. I can predict hypothetical events - but until I have prior knowledge, I cannot predict that a real life event will happen. Given nothing but the frequency distrbution of a continuous event (that of selecting a 5' 7" person from a population), the propability of that happening is infinitesimal.

Josh, if you're saying that I've contradicted myself, please show me how. It will help if you cut and paste. I didn't do so with Allan because his contradictions were in the two posts before mine - close enough that it was obvious.

[Robert]

[Robert]

[alecto]