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flexibeasti recently came across an article about an Oxford Professor (no less!) who claims to have a mathematical proof that Christ was resurrected by God. A proof is only as good as its starting premises, and so i was flabbergasted to read the following:
Er, what??? A possibility space limited to two possibilities does not automatically imply an equal probability for both of those possibilities - the sun may or may not rise tomorrow, but does that mean there's a 50% chance that it won't? :-P The assignation of probability to a given event is not necessarily a trivial task; and particularly so when we're talking about the existence of God! A Bayesian approach, which is based on examining previous occurences of an event, can sometimes help; but there is hardly an abundance of 'previous occurences' of the existence of God. :-P
It's really sad to see an Oxford Professor making a mockery of both spirituality and mathematics like this. If he so strongly felt the need to discuss links between spirituality and mathematics, perhaps he should have examined the plethora of instances of the Golden Ratio in the pentagram. :-)
He said that the conclusion was arrived at after a series of complex calculations, which began with the probability of God's existence as one in two, that is either God existed or did not, adding that it was also one in two that God became incarnate.
Er, what??? A possibility space limited to two possibilities does not automatically imply an equal probability for both of those possibilities - the sun may or may not rise tomorrow, but does that mean there's a 50% chance that it won't? :-P The assignation of probability to a given event is not necessarily a trivial task; and particularly so when we're talking about the existence of God! A Bayesian approach, which is based on examining previous occurences of an event, can sometimes help; but there is hardly an abundance of 'previous occurences' of the existence of God. :-P
It's really sad to see an Oxford Professor making a mockery of both spirituality and mathematics like this. If he so strongly felt the need to discuss links between spirituality and mathematics, perhaps he should have examined the plethora of instances of the Golden Ratio in the pentagram. :-)
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Date: 2005-07-28 06:06 (UTC)