The Odds of being Right

By Burny ~

Something I've heard a lot from Christians again lately, is the idea that since we can't really know who's right and who's wrong about God vs. no God, their opinion is just as valid and likely to be true as someone like me who doesn't believe in God. This argument is a sort of Pascal's Wager which has been dealt with before on this site, but a more subtle version of it which demands a simple illustration to show why this argument is too simplistic and doesn't make sense mathematically speaking.

Let's say there are 4200 world religions today. Of course, you assume that only 1 of those 4200 views is the correct way to view God and reality - that is Christianity. The way a lot of Christians talk is that they assume that Atheism is simply another religious point of view, i.e. there are 4201 differing opinions and 4201 options - one of which MUST be correct. This is an incorrect way of using statistics and I can illustrate this with an example using colored marbles.

Let's take the 4200 world religions and represent them with colored marbles - say they're all slightly different shades of gray. I'll even go one step further and let's assume 4199 of them are grey tones and 1 of them (i.e. Christianity) is navy blue. Atheism isn't represented by one additional marble - say a white one - it's represented by an infinite number of slightly different shades of white marbles. Atheists don't believe that that the complete absence of God(s) is the only statistical option left next to the 4200 defined religions of the world today.

An honest Atheist has to admit that there are an infinite number of other possibilities - slight nuances of every single option possible, including the 4200 current world religions, all the historical world religious beliefs and also an infinite number of other ones. Simply put - nobody can know the real truth until we know everything that there is to know about anything - and this leaves us with an infinite number of possible truths - albeit some very unlikely options such as unicorns, Santa Claus and flying reindeer! It is impossible to prove that garden gnomes don't exist without first proving everything else both in and without our universe and showing that garden gnomes aren't anywhere. This applies across the board and includes Jesus, Zeus, Thor and every God that's ever been worshiped.

Nobody can know the real truth until we know everything that there is to know about anythingThe way an Atheist views reality and the odds of Christianity being the one truth can be thought of as dumping all the marbles (4199 shades of gray, 1 blue and an infinite number of slightly different shades of white) into a huge bucket and blindly choosing just one of them. When the marble that was chosen is viewed, it just happens to be the blue one.

The mathematical odds of a random choice resulting in the one blue marble, out of an infinite number of other options are zero, and this is the position of an atheist when it comes to Christianity being the one truth. No matter how correct you might think you are. No matter how smart and reasoned you might think your position is. No matter how right you feel you are. No matter how many personal prayers you think your God has personally answered, the sheer statistical odds of you being correct amongst an infinite number of alternate possibilities are ZERO.

It's that simple for Atheists. Even Christians believe this, which is why you feel so lucky to be saved! You know that the odds that you just happened to be born into the ONE correct interpretation of Christianity and the ONE correct world religion are astronomically small. The only difference between you and I is that you call it a miracle and I call it impossible.

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