Faith & the odds of God's existence

[Joey Joe Joe]

I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God. I believe it’s possible there is a God, He or She’s just a big longshot. Others who feel the same way around here sometimes put an odds line on the existence of God (I’ve seen estimates varying on these boards from 10:1 to 1 billion:1). Those who feel like I do see no logical reason to believe in God, so we don’t, but we believe it’s possible. When we make a seat-of-our-pants guess at an appropriate odds line, we’re trying to get a good line down, using all available information (and yes, these lines are wildly subjective, and kind of silly, but also provide a little fun on a gambling website). But are we properly incorporating the information that billions of people believe in God, with no logical reason for it? They keep telling us that one just has to have faith, and we just don’t see it. We throw logical arguments back at them, and they keep coming, sometimes with (possibly false) logic, but often with the faith argument. This of course doesn’t hold much water from a scientific perspective. We feel that these billions are under some misguided mass delusion. This is probably true. But, the fact that there are these massive numbers of people with so-called faith surely must fudge the line that God exists by some amount. Perhaps there really is something to this concept of faith, and we who do not have it can not possibly understand.

To put this another way, suppose the world we live in was basically the same (as similar as possible), but only 10% or so of people believed in God. Suppose this 10% was made up of the poorer, uneducated folk, and belief in God was very rare among educated individuals. How much would this shift the line that God exists? After all, perhaps God is speaking to his children through this whole faith thing. If I lived in such a world, and set the odds line for the existence of God at 1000:1, what would the appropriate shift in our world be? Nothing? Tiny change but negligible? A new odds line of 999:1?

[David Sklansky]

"Those who feel like I do see no logical reason to believe in God, so we don’t, but we believe it’s possible. When we make a seat-of-our-pants guess at an appropriate odds line, we’re trying to get a good line down, using all available information (and yes, these lines are wildly subjective, and kind of silly, but also provide a little fun on a gambling website). But are we properly incorporating the information that billions of people believe in God, with no logical reason for it?"

This is a good question. Actually it could be reasonable to incorporate it. Except for one thing. The existence of so many religions. And the existence of so many religious people who are so sure they are right, (and other religions wrong,) that their opinions of those other religions is about as negative as athiest's opinions toward those religions. So it basically cancels things out as far as your question is concerned.

I have often written that even I would not be that sure of myself if the vast majority of people disagreed with me and all believed in the same religion.

[MagnoliasFM]

You're right it'd be subjective. Our lives are lived with imperfect information and our knowledges are all different, so everyone's odds would be different based on what they know. For me, the odds are 100% God exists. But for you they may only be less than 1%. Our perceived odds change as our webs of knowledge change.

The "true" chances that God exists if one were to know everything would either be 100% or 0%. Either he always existed or never did.

So if you want to eyeball the odds, you can only speak for yourself and everyone else who has the same beliefs/knowledge as you.

What other people believe and how many of them there are is not necessarily correlational to the truth. Just look at how many people believe they are "winning" poker players.

[Jernau]

This is the logical fallacy 'Argumentum ad Numerum'.

This fallacy is closely related to the 'Argumentum ad Populum'. It consists of asserting that the more people who support or believe a proposition, the more likely it is that that proposition is correct. For example:

"At one time, most people in Europe believed that the Earth was the center of the Solar System."

"All I'm saying is that thousands of people believe in pyramid power, so there must be something to it."

[BeerMoney]

[ QUOTE ]
For me, the odds are 100% God exists.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really don't believe you.

[PairTheBoard]

What if god is not god, but something else?

PairTheBoard