Fun statistics with Christianity

[Nameless]

Assume, for the moment, that a God exists.

There are 6 major religions in the world, each with a different view on God.

Since those religions view God differently, at least five out of six of them must be wrong.

This gives Christianity a 5/6 chance of being bullshit, and that's BEFORE we even start to consider minor religions and the possibility that God does not exist the way any religion views it. :)

[the traveller]

what if none of them are wrong....

just looking at the same Truth in 6 different ways?

[MeTHoD-X]

what if none of them are wrong....

just looking at the same Truth in 6 different ways?

dude... seriously.

[SirRuben]

what if none of them are wrong....

just looking at the same Truth in 6 different ways?

dude... seriously.
Yeah dude uh-huh-huh. Like.. Yeah heheh-heheh..

Sorry, couldn't resist

You know the old nothern religion of Thor and Odin is an acknowledged religion now. So make that 6/7 chance..

[the traveller]

hahaha. I never said it was obvious, just something that one could consider. I mean, lets take a hypothetical situation. Lets say there is a One Truth that is a supernatural being or thing or whatever that has some semblance of interaction with our physical universe but is "above" us. Now, if this is the One Truth, there can only be one. Right. So we have hundreds (if not thousands) of different religious orders that believe in something that they believe is the way the universe works. Why should one be more right than any other? So, if we follow that all religions are equal and they all believe in a singular truth about the universe, they must all believe in the One Truth because there CAN only be one Truth. Thus, all religions believe in the same truth, but look at it in radically different ways. Besides, I believe at a basic level, all religions are the same. It is just the people that seem to screw everything up.

haha

[Fallen Hero]

what if none of them are wrong....

just looking at the same Truth in 6 different ways?

dude... seriously.
Yeah dude uh-huh-huh. Like.. Yeah heheh-heheh..

Sorry, couldn't resist

You know the old nothern religion of Thor and Odin is an acknowledged religion now. So make that 6/7 chance..

Hehe and it is funny, because that religion makes more sense than all the others combined. (I think they reconize many things as actually being stories too, but I do not know for sure)

[Nanashi]

Well, if buddhist are correct, you will be reincarnated untill you are no longer a noob; then you will trancend to Nirvana.

If Christians are correct, then the majority of the world is going to hell, for the simple fact that they do not believe in the Christian god. Then, of the people that do believe, only the ones who repent will be forgivin for their sins and get to live in heaven.

In Judaism they don't mention too much about the after life, so it's rather open to personal interpretation, but all Jews believe that the righteous dead will be ressurected when the Messiah comes, and have the oportunity to experience the 'perfect world of peace and prosperity'.

In Satanism when you die, you die. Your afterlife is the legacy you leave behind.

Seems to me that there is no one central point to even these 4 religions, much less all of the religions in the world. [Even polytheisting religions.. uhm.. Greek gods?] So... no.

The One Truth would be more like: "All religions are made by man to explain things he couldn't explain himself; and be relieved that, even though things are out of his hands, someone else has controll of it all."

[the traveller]

Well, if buddhist are correct, you will be reincarnated untill you are no longer a noob; then you will trancend to Nirvana.


Before continuing on, I wanted to address this. Hinduism bears the ideas of reincarnation to higher levels. Buddhism puts forward a breaking of that cycle of reincarnation. That's what Siddartha oridinally was rebelling against.


As for a reply to the idea of unity of religion, I wanted to quote an recent post in the Buddhist livejournal community. It is rather long, but worthwhile:

Friday morning, I walked into the neighborhood Starbucks cafe and saw a very attractive young lady. I ordered a large cup of cappuccino and proceeded to sit at the table next to hers. After about a couple of minutes of trying to think of something to say without appearing to be too forward, she surprisingly asked,"Do you have the time, Sir?". As I gaze at my watch, I asked her if she was in a hurry. She said that she just wanted to make sure that she wasn't going to miss her bus to the university. So the conversation continued. We talked about so many things from a certain homosexual republican congressman from Florida, to corruption in government, to the Osama Bin Ladin, to the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars, to Islamic terrorism. We both talked quite negatively about Islam. We talked about how the ATS should continue to do profilng on passengers from the east, especially if they're known to be Muslims. We talked about how stupid a person has to be in order to strap a bomb to themselves just to murder innocent people who most likely have nothing to do with your political cause. We continued to speak abusively concerning Islamic countries that deny women equal rights and openly discriminate against gays by beating or jailing them without any recourse. After about half an hour, we began to talk about the backwards Islamic country of Sudan and how it is responsible for the genocide of so many indigenous Sudanese blacks of Darfur. At this point, a very dark-skinned young man, who had been sitting across from us (absolutely expressionless the entire time), turned towards us and said, "These people are not Muslims, they have nothing to do with Allah!". I noticed immediately that he possibly had a slight African accent and that he had a false eye. As he continued to defend Islam, I observed how articulate and fluent he was in english. He began to talk about how Allah was a just God and how Muslims are people who want peace and justice. He continued on about how the terrorists are just murderers, they're not genuine Muslims, he kept referring to them as hypocrites. He then told us that his name was Yusef and that he was a Muslim from Chad and that all of his life, he lived to please Allah, and to represent God in an honorable fashion. He seemed proud of the fact that he had been a member of the African Union Army. He was proud of the fact that he had been selected for the Army of the African Union as a soldier from Chad to assist and protect the people of Darfur. He felt as though he did not just go to represent his country but that he went to represent Allah, as his hand in justice, to stop the murderous Janjaweed arm of the Sudanese government. He then became very exuberant and said, "Do you see this!". He held up his right hand, it was slightly mangled with two fingers missing. He claimed that he lost those two fingers and the use of his right eye when he attempted to return a Janjaweed tossed hand grenade into a crowd of villagers while serving in Darfur for the African Union. He said that Allah told him to respond quickly. He did and consequently he was certain that he had saved some lives upon that day. He then stated very proudly, that he would gladly lose all of his fingers, all of his limbs, and his life if need be, to defend the innocent in the name of Allah. He added, that it did not have to be the innocent in Africa either. He said that anywhere Allah would send him to defend the innocent, he would do it gladly.
I then asked him, "Where do you think Allah would send you next?" He then said," I am now physically disabled, therefore, there is little I can do for places like Darfur and Iraq, however, I can speak well, I now will defend Islam right here in the U.S. where people don't understand Islam... by speaking."
Linda (my coffee partner) and I were both stunned by this young man's eloquence, his determination, his sense of humanity, and his overall demeanor. We just sat there in awe of his presence. We all began to talk about peace and how much people needed to stop building walls, but bridges instead. We realized that somehow our meeting in Starbucks was indeed a fortunate one. As we concluded our conversation, I extended my hand to Yusef, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him (with just the few strong fingers remaining) and he hugged me and call me his brother. I felt honored. Linda then hugged him and then I hugged Linda. We exchanged phone numbers and I now have two new friends. How fortunate we all were to have a perchance meeting at Starbucks. Our paths not only intersected physically, but somehow we had a meeting of both our hearts and our minds.
How about that, a Buddhist, a Christian, and a Muslim together in total union and agreement in a spirit of compassion.

have a nice day.

[Nanashi]

Morality isn't created by religion.

Just because 3 people of differing religions agree that it sucks to blow innocent people up doesn't mean that all religions hold One Truth; it just means that humans have a sense or morality and compassion.

[Fallen Hero]

I find that religions tend to disagree, but excluding the exremists, they tend to try and pull themselves to a more 'unified' stance, mostly to help with racism and things like that.

[antony]

Since those religions view God differently, at least five out of six of them must be wrong. This gives Christianity a 5/6 chance of being bullshit, and that's BEFORE we even start to consider minor religions and the possibility that God does not exist the way any religion views it. :)

Come on. If you believe that, you're as much of an intellectual lightweight as the creationists. The chance that a statement is true doesn't depend on how many alternatives there are -- it's either true or it isn't, and we determine this through logical discourse. Rolling dice honetly doesn't get us any closer to the truth.

Oh, and traveller, that's an awesome story. I'm going to hang that on my wall as an example to myself. :)

[Xoligy]

Intellectual lightweight? You're arguing on behalf of something that has no proof, has had parts proven wrong and is complete bullshit. Whilst we're at it, robots took over the world and we're all hooked up to a supercomputer called the Matrix.

[AaronD]

The chance that a statement is true doesn't depend on how many alternatives there are -- it's either true or it isn't, and we determine this through logical discourse.

Although a statement is either true or not true, there is still probability involved. If six people each said a different story about the same event, and said it in a way that only one of the stories could possibly be true, then there is a one out of six chance for each story that it is the true one. It is the same with religion. If every religion says a completely different thing, than there is a chance of one in however many religions there are that one particular religion is telling the truth. So, while there may be a fifty-fifty chance that a statement is true (before calculating in the chances of partial truths, understatements, and hyperbole), there is a much slimmer chance that one statement is the one true statement out of a given array of statements.

[Alice Shade]

And that is not even the full scope of problem.

What if each religion holds only a certain percent of truth? Which is, most probably, true, by the way.

As you know, each religion has all the parts summarised with AND, so by logic math, we come to conclusion, that there is very little chance, that ANY religion would have all parts result in TRUE, to have whole religion result in TRUE.

Now, let`s not forget, that existance of OmniTruth should be evaluated by XOR, and not OR, for it is described as singular, and as such, can`t have two solutions leading to it.

XOR(AND(rel1_scr1,rel1_scr2,rel1_scr3...),AND(rel2_scr1,rel2_scr2,rel2_scr3...), AND(rel3_scr1,rel3_scr2,rel3_scr3...)...)=?

rel#_scr@ - religion number #, scripture number @, when evaluated, returns TRUE or FALSE, based on PROOF (We`ll need to systemise religions to achieve eligible results, and seek out proof for every TRUE/FALSE, for simple "I think so" does not cuts it in logic math.) Scriptures of equal number represent same matters in different religions, for quality of systemising.

I think it results in FALSE.

One could argue, that this is not entirely conclusive.... For that matter, I suggest next equation.

AND(XOR(rel1_scr1,rel2_scr1,rel3_scr1...),XOR(rel1_scr2,rel2_scr2,rel3_scr2...), XOR(rel1_scr3,rel2_scr3,rel3_scr3...)...)=?

One can notice, that it`s similar to previous one, but "switched around". This equation evaluates the logical existance of OmniTruth via trying to assemble it from various truths out of different religions.
Once again, only one religion might have correct scripture on a matter - if there`s none, then OmniTruth does not exits, and if there`s two, it violates the axiom, that OmniTruth is singular.

What does this equation evaluates to? Again FALSE, is my opinion. But, maybe someone would be willing to perform them?


P.S. There is one caveat I`ve intentionally omitted, and while it`s pretty obvious to me, I`m wondering, who else will spot it.

[Googler]

Well, if buddhist are correct, you will be reincarnated untill you are no longer a noob; then you will trancend to Nirvana.

If Christians are correct, then the majority of the world is going to hell, for the simple fact that they do not believe in the Christian god. Then, of the people that do believe, only the ones who repent will be forgivin for their sins and get to live in heaven.

In Judaism they don't mention too much about the after life, so it's rather open to personal interpretation, but all Jews believe that the righteous dead will be ressurected when the Messiah comes, and have the oportunity to experience the 'perfect world of peace and prosperity'.

In Satanism when you die, you die. Your afterlife is the legacy you leave behind.

Seems to me that there is no one central point to even these 4 religions, much less all of the religions in the world. [Even polytheisting religions.. uhm.. Greek gods?] So... no.

The One Truth would be more like: "All religions are made by man to explain things he couldn't explain himself; and be relieved that, even though things are out of his hands, someone else has controll of it all."

A good point there are so many contradictory elements of the religoins that they can't just be different viewpoints.

[antony]

Intellectual lightweight? You're arguing on behalf of something that has no proof, has had parts proven wrong and is complete bullshit.

I thought the purpose of this forum was to evaluate the truth of that statement, not to state it as an axiom. If you just state you beliefs and don't back them up, nobody's gained anything.

Whilst we're at it, robots took over the world and we're all hooked up to a supercomputer called the Matrix.

You can't disprove that either. :lol: Sorry, couldn't help myself...

[antony]

Although a statement is either true or not true, there is still probability involved. If six people each said a different story about the same event, and said it in a way that only one of the stories could possibly be true, then there is a one out of six chance for each story that it is the true one.

No... either one of them is true, or none of them are true.

I think the problem is that your language is ambiguous here. Saying that each has a 1/6 probability of being true implies that, if we were to determine the truth of the set of stories multiple times, each would out turn out to be true 1/6 of the time. That's what probability means. I'm saying that you will find the same story true every time, which needs to happen in order for the concept of truth to be meaningful at all.

It's tempting to say that there's a 1/6 probability of each being true; from the decider's point of view, without corroborating evidence, each would seem to have an equal chance of being true. But that doesn't mean that they ARE equally true.

My big problem with the argument, though, is that it is implied but not stated that you shouldn't believe in any religion because it's arbitrary which one is true. Note that the quality of arbitrarity is the thing that's being used against religions; that it wasn't in the premise, but sneaked in because probability has been defined inconsistantly.

You may have needed a firm grounding in philosophy of mathematics to catch the actual error, but anyone should have realized that the notion of ambiguity came out of nowhere. I guess you're less likely to see an error in your argument when it proves what you wanted to prove, but that's human, and that's why we have each other to debate with. :D

Just to summarize, the argument was:
1) There are six choices
2) Thus, before being evaluated, each each choice has an equal chance of being true (colloquial definition of "probability")
3) Thus, if they are evaluated a number of times, each one will evaluate to true the same number of times (technical definition of "probability")
4) None of the stories are uniquely true, and thus they are all meaningless.
The fallacy is that 2 does not imply 3 (although 3 does imply 2); 4 is the unstated conclusion.

[antony]

What if each religion holds only a certain percent of truth? Which is, most probably, true, by the way.

That's actually getting fairly close to my view of religion... there is an absolute truth, but we don't know what it is, and the way we bring our theory closer to the actual truth is by challenging your beliefs through discourse. This is true for either science or religion. (I am also a devout Catholic, but that's a whole other thread.)

P.S. There is one caveat I`ve intentionally omitted, and while it`s pretty obvious to me, I`m wondering, who else will spot it.

Is it that you are performing XOR separately on each scripture, without checking to see that e.g. rel1's interpretation of scr3 doesn't conflict with rel2's itnterpretation of scr5?

[Alice Shade]

Not exactly. It is mentioned, that scriptures are sorted in such a way, that scripture of certain number replies to certain problem in all the religions.

Caveat being, that several religions might feature absolutically-identic scriptures, and were those scriptures to be the parts of OmniTruth, then XOR() function, evaluating them both, would`ve returned a FALSE.
But I think, that it`s completely safe to merge identical scriptures in one without influencing the outcome.