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Proof of God! Just Disconnect Your Brain!
The desperation of the FTBs (Frothing True Believers) is often laughable. Just when you think they have sunk as low as they could, trying to manufacture proof of their invisible god, they sink even lower. Below is a convoluted bit of (ahem) logic that is so absurd on its face that it hardly needs refuting. It reminds me of no less that the UFOnuts misusing Drake's Equation to prove that flying saucers are actually alien space ships. The following article appeared on the welcome page of the Wal Mart Connect website on 8/29/05.
Mathematics Proves Christ's Resurrection?
It is faith, not proof, that makes Christians believe in Jesus Christ's resurrection, the central tenet of the religion. Until now. Oxford University professor Richard Swinburne, a leading philosopher of religion, has seemingly done the impossible. Using logic and mathematics, he has created a formula that he says shows a 97 percent certainty that Jesus Christ was resurrected by God the Father, report The Age and Catholic News.
This stunning conclusion was made based on a series of complex calculations grounded in the following logic:
1. The probably of God's existence is one in two. That is, God either exists or doesn't.
2. The probability that God became incarnate, that is embodied in human form, is also one in two.
3. The evidence for God's existence is an argument for the resurrection.
4. The chance of Christ's resurrection not being reported by the gospels has a probability of one in 10.
5. Considering all these factors together, there is a one in 1,000 chance that the resurrection is not true.
"New Testament scholars say the only evidences are witnesses in the four gospels. That's only five percent of the evidence," Swinburne said in a lecture he gave at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne. "We can't judge the question of the resurrection unless we ask first whether there's reason to suppose there is a God. Secondly, if we have reason to suppose he would become incarnate, and thirdly, if he did, whether he would live the sort of life Jesus did." He says that even Jesus' life is not enough proof. However, the resurrection is "God's signature," which shows "his approval of Jesus' teaching." The calculations that Swinburne says prove the resurrection are detailed in his book, "The Resurrection of God Incarnate."
Points one and two are a bit of a stretch. That is, it is a lot more than one in two against. Swinburne is trying to level the playing field a bit. It’s roughly the same sort of dishonesty that creationists/hollow earth nuts/UFO nuts/ various believers in paranormal/hoodoo stuff try, by declaring their beliefs ands science are the same: just theories.
Number three is irrefutable. No god, thus no resurrection. I agree with that one 100%.
Number four is quite amusing. The argument behind this is “jesus existed, therefore…” It’s another dishonest way of shoring up the basic argument. One does wonder where he gets the one in 10 figure. Like everything else in this sorry example, he probably just pulled it from thin air.
The conclusion is another howler. Here we have Swinburne, sitting in his study, coming up with the cure for Atheism. Why, it’s so simple. Throw in a few numbers, make a lot of assumptions not backed by evidence, and voila! Proof of god, there all along.
The whole silly exercise in wishful thinking would not have occurred if Swinburne had simply started at the beginning. He could have started with whether there was proof for jesus’ existence. He could have looked in the historical record, trying to see if there were any contemporary historical references to jesus.
And that is where it would have stopped cold. He would have found no contemporary accounts of jesus. All of that time he would have wasted coming up with that faulty bit of logic could have been spent doing something worthwhile.
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