Math Forum Discussions

forbisgaryg@gmail.com

Posts: 43
Registered: 11/26/12

Re: Math Proves Christ's Creation
Posted: Jan 30, 2013 9:19 AM

Plain Text

On Wednesday, January 30, 2013 3:00:26 AM UTC-8, BroilJAB wrote:
> Oxford University professor Richard Swinburne
> has done the math. Using logic and mathematics,
> he has created a formula that shows a 97 percent
> certainty that Jesus Christ was resurrected.
>
> The probability of God's existence is one in two.
> The probability that God became incarnate, also.
> The chance of Christ's resurrection not being
> reported by the gospels a probability of one in 10.
> Considering all these factors together, there is a
> 1 in 1,000 chance that the resurrection is not true.
> With the hard evidence of math, Dr.Swinburne has
> left atheists denying hard math.

Making up numbers is not hard math.
There's a 99.[9]% chance Dr. Swinburne has
made up numbers to suit his needs. A quick
look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Swinburne
under "Swinburne formulated five categories into which all
religious experiences fall" you will see what to rational
people are unsupportable assumptions. Here's a bit of it:

"Swinburne also coined two principles for the assessment of religious experiences:
Principle of Credulity - with the absence of any reason to disbelieve it, one should accept what appears to be true (e.g., if one sees someone walking on water, one should believe that it is occurring)
Principle of Testimony - with the absence of any reason to disbelieve them, one should accept that eye-witnesses or believers are telling the truth when they testify about religious experiences."

He assigns probabilities based upon his feelings rather than anything
empirical.

Here, let me help you out. Here's a reference to the onotological
argument for the existence of God:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/ONTARG.HTM

Think a bit about the writer's comments then consider how numbers would
be assigned to anything Dr.Swinburne reports in his "math".

Here's a passage from his own work at
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~orie0087/framesetpdfs.shtml

"The most general phenomenon that provides evidence for the existence of God is the existence of
the physical universe for as long as it has existed (whether a finite time or, if it has no beginning, an infinite
time). This is something evidently inexplicable by science."

This alone show his muddled thinking. The lack of evidence
to be explained isn't evidence of an explanation. If it were
then there would be a need to explain how God came to exist.
It is a psychologoical need for a first cause not a physical
need for one. It is met by some in this forum for a largest
natural number. It is a needless need.

Here another passage from the same works:

"That there should exist anything at all, let alone a universe as complex and as orderly as ours, is
exceedingly strange. But if there is a God, it is not vastly unlikely that he should create such a universe."

Here he is asserting the likelyhood of a God creating this universe based
upon the hypothetical existence of God. Why he doesn't consider the
existence of a God as creator of "a universe as complex and as orderly as
ours" more strange than "a universe as complex and as orderly as ours" I
don't know. Why would the existence of such a God not require a greater
explanation than the existing, supposedly created universe?

Since you go on from time to time about evolition you should read from
the cited material where Dr Swinbourne writes:

"...Such is Darwin"s account of why we have today animals and humans.
As far as it goes, his account is surely right..."

His acceptance shows his internal conflict between what he knows and
what he wants to know. Both the infinite and the void are hard to
stare at. There is something unsettling about them. Some find it
easier to just deny their metaphysical existence than quiet one's
fear of the unknowable. The religious term is "agape" in this sense:

1. In a state of wonder or amazement, as with the mouth wide open.
2. Wide open.

not this sense:

1. Christianity Love as revealed in Jesus, seen as spiritual and selfless and a model for humanity.
2. Love that is spiritual, not sexual, in its nature.
3. Christianity In the early Christian Church, the love feast accompanied by Eucharistic celebration.

Here is the final paragraph in the cited works:

"Of course, the God to whom these arguments point is a person (or persons) about whom we can
know only those properties responsible for the phenomena I have been discussing - his omnipotence
omniscience and perfect freedom (and other properties, which, I believe are consequences of these - e.g.
omnipresence and perfect goodness). Of what underlies these properties, of that in which the properties
inhere, we cannot have any full understanding. But for the human pilgrim in this life, the former is quite
enough; and some human pilgrims in the modern world need the strong inductive arguments that are
available to show the existence of a God having these properties."

Note than he demands a simple explanation for the existence of the
universe but is fulling willing to accept "we cannot have any full
understanding" of his God. His inconsistencies abound. His religion
doesn't meet the requirements he sets for science. That he would
assign probabilities and pretend to do math fits well into his style.