trumble could you reply to this first?
http://www.islamicboard.com/comparative-religion/31364-truth-god-does-not-exist-21.html#post565365
and then i'll make a reply including the bits above.... because i think it's central to our discussion
take care all the best.
I thought I already had, twice!
OK, you say that
Really.. it's simple probability analysis.
It is simple, but it musn't be flawed. The problem with the coincidence 'proof' is that it
is flawed.
The mistake is an implicit assumption, that that there are only two possible results.. results that is of pretty much any of the example that have been given, the nature of the universe and associated physical laws, the origins of complex bio-mechanical systems, the glass shattering with a perfect edge, your hurricane or whatever. But there aren't two possible results, there are an (almost) infinite number
each as probable, or improbable as each other.
Let's take another example. You have a large bag of marbles. You empty the bag from a top of a skyscraper in the hope that when they hit the ground they will be organised
precisely to spell "George W Bush is an idiot". Now, what is the probability of that happening? Almost infinitely small, but it is possible. It is undoubtably, however, much, much less probable than it
not happening. There's the flaw, the 'coincidence' approach assumes those are your choices, does or does not. But they aren't - you need to consider each possibility independently. The chance of the marbles precisely spelling "George W Bush is an idiot" is
exactly (assuming we ignore the effects of wind and such, for simplicity) the same as any other possible result, any other particular precise distribution of the marbles. You could spend a thousand years trying to get "George W Bush is an idiot", but you could also spend it trying to get any other particular result, whether it spelt anything or not. But one of those almost impossible combinations
has to happen each and every time.
In the case of the universe, and life, unless that particular (or one of a few particular) combinations occurred we would not be having this discussion. But we are, so it did, but that result was no more unlikely than any other. For all we know the cosmic marbles had already been thrown infinity minus one times, but that can only be speculated upon in the universe where it did.
It takes more than jsut chaos and zero intelligence to design things.
But it doesn't, given enough time. Eventually you will get "George W Bush is an idiot"... or the formation of complex biochemical systems. When those systems are "right", they hang around, and the whole process begins again building on that new bag of marbles.
It's no coincidence that the prophets life was heavily documented as well as heavily scruitinized and authenticated by the scholars, and it's no coincidence that he's an illiterate person, just to put any doubts far out of the equation.
How many of those scholars were there to see him? How many met him, or journeyed with him? As to illiterate, so what? He most certainly wasn't stupid, and most knowledge then was communicated orally anyway. Nothing is put beyond doubt.. certainly if the alternate is conjouring up a God on the assumption you have no other reason to believe in one. As I said to Ansar, I'll happily agree the chances of Mohammed meeting the 'right' people were small, but they were far from impossible. The chances of winning the lottery are millions to one, but many people have won it... they don't (usually) claim that justifies a belief in God.
