The Coin-Flipper (and randomness)

[docphin5]

A scientist came along one day who claimed that coin-flipping proves God does not exist due to the random way that it produces results. He claimed that random events determine whether a coin flips on its head or its tail, not God. How can there be a God if he does not even control the results of a simple flipping of the coin, he boasted?

Thousands who read this scientist‘s claim began flipping coins to test his theory. Sure enough, the results of coin flipping appeared random. Subsequently, people began leaving the churches because coin-flipping appeared random.

The evangelical Christian leaders turned red with indignation. How dare the scientist claim that God does not exist, so they notified all their members, and started a movement to oppose coin-flipping. Coin-flipping was an evil to be opposed. Pastors thundered in their pulpits against coin-flipping. Books were written against coin-flippers. Web sites were formed to rant against coin flipping. The world settled into two camps: the coin-flippers and those opposed to coin-flipping.

Then one day another scientist spoke up and said the debate over coin-flipping is much a do about nothing. He invented a coin flipping device that controlled for variables affecting results of flipping a coin, such as, the force launching the coin upwards, the rotational speed of the coin, the height and depth of its travel, wind currents, the angle of ascent, and, sure enough, the device produced the same result 99 out of 100 times when the coin was flipped.

He had demonstrated that randomness is unknown causes by another name, —that when ALL causes are known the results of something as simple as flipping of a coin can be predicted with certainity. Furthermore, if man can make a tool that produces the same result when all causes are known then it is certain that God who knows all causes can produce a moral consciousness from a lifeless matter. This he has presumably done.

Henceforth, evangelical Christians and scientists began breaking bread together and …flipping-coins again.

 

[TeabagSalad]

I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make. Can you elaborate?

 

[stiggy wiggy]

I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make. Can you elaborate?

I think the moral of this worthless fable is that God has no interest whatsoever in the results of random coin flipping, particularly when NOTHING is at stake, and most likely not even when the stakes are who kicks off and who receives.

 

[docphin5]

I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make. Can you elaborate?

Richard Dawkins compares God to a “blind watchmaker”, due to what appears as random events, aka, genetic mutations, producing life on our planet. Atheists swoon and evangelicals turn red in the face.

From Wikipedia, “The Blind Watchmaker”
“After arguing that evolution is capable of explaining the origin of complexity, near the end of the book Dawkins uses this to argue against the existence of God: "a deity capable of engineering all the organized complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution ... must already have been vastly complex in the first place ..." He calls this "postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation."

In the preface, Dawkins states that he wrote the book "to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence."”

Evolution becomes a battleground over the misinformation presented by Dawkins and his followers, that is, that random events produced life on earth not God. The truth is as I stated,

“when all causes are known (to include unknown causes, aka, ”random” causes) then it is certain that God who knows all causes can produce a moral consciousness from a lifeless matter. This he has presumably done.”

Evangelicals should not be opposed to evolution but should accept it as the means to an end, that is, a means for God to produce moral life from nonlife. To him, there is nothing random about it: everything happens for a cause, whether known or unknown by us.

Dawkins is also wrong. Evolution is NOT the only theory of our existence, for our existence existed long before life on this planet, to which, evolution has nothing to say. Moreover, random events were not unknown to God for he knows all causes which produced life from nonlife beginning from the foundation of the world and before.

 

[stiggy wiggy]

Richard Dawkins compares God to a “blind watchmaker”, due to what appears as random events, aka, genetic mutations, producing life on our planet. Atheists swoon and evangelicals turn red in the face.

So you think we evangelicals turn red in the face after listening to Dawkins' shallow pablum? Lol.

 

[Komodo]

A scientist came along one day who claimed that coin-flipping proves God does not exist due to the random way that it produces results. He claimed that random events determine whether a coin flips on its head or its tail, not God. How can there be a God if he does not even control the results of a simple flipping of the coin, he boasted?

Thousands who read this scientist‘s claim began flipping coins to test his theory. Sure enough, the results of coin flipping appeared random. Subsequently, people began leaving the churches because coin-flipping appeared random.

The evangelical Christian leaders turned red with indignation. How dare the scientist claim that God does not exist, so they notified all their members, and started a movement to oppose coin-flipping. Coin-flipping was an evil to be opposed. Pastors thundered in their pulpits against coin-flipping. Books were written against coin-flippers. Web sites were formed to rant against coin flipping. The world settled into two camps: the coin-flippers and those opposed to coin-flipping.

Then one day another scientist spoke up and said the debate over coin-flipping is much a do about nothing. He invented a coin flipping device that controlled for variables affecting results of flipping a coin, such as, the force launching the coin upwards, the rotational speed of the coin, the height and depth of its travel, wind currents, the angle of ascent, and, sure enough, the device produced the same result 99 out of 100 times when the coin was flipped.

He had demonstrated that randomness is unknown causes by another name, —that when ALL causes are known the results of something as simple as flipping of a coin can be predicted with certainity. Furthermore, if man can make a tool that produces the same result when all causes are known then it is certain that God who knows all causes can produce a moral consciousness from a lifeless matter. This he has presumably done.

Henceforth, evangelical Christians and scientists began breaking bread together and …flipping-coins again.

Assuming this is a kind of allegory about evolution, creationism and atheism, I'd start by saying that religious people have known for a long time that the world around us is, at least in very large part, a product of natural causes which don't have God's fingerprints on them. There was no great uproar among theists, for example, when Newton showed that the orbits of the planets were due to natural causes. The theory of evolution had an outsized impact because it was not just one more example of that sort of thing, it was something which touched on an area -- the origin of life, especially human life -- which so many theists thought did have God's fingerprints on them, largely because of what the Bible said, but also because of the tendency to see ourselves as special.

Of course it's not inevitable that all theists would react this way. I used to attend a college where anti-evolution activist Phillip Johnson was scheduled to give a talk. Johnson insisted in his books that Darwinism was an incurably malignant influence, because if Homo sapiens arose from mere natural causes, it followed that God either didn't exist or didn't care about us. I asked fellow users of the CompuServe Religion & Philosophy group (anybody else old enough to remember that?) if they had any question to pass along which I could ask Johnson if I got the chance, and one participant offered this:

"As a Christian, I believe that I am alive here and now because that was God's plan for me. At the same time, I accept the fact that, from a biological standpoint, I am alive here and now because certain strands of my parents' DNA came together in a certain way. If I can believe the latter fact, without thinking it proves that God either doesn't exist or doesn't care about me, why can't I equally believe both that the human race is under God's care, and that the human race came about because of a certain set of genetic changes in a population of apes?"

I thought this was an excellent question, so when I got a chance, I asked it of Johnson. His answer was, basically, it would be fine to believe both of those things, if there were sufficient evidence that humans were descended from non-human apes, but he didn't think there was. Which I think was both factually wrong (i.e., I think there is evidence to show this beyond reasonable doubt), and made nonsense of his claim about the incurably malignant implications of Darwinism. Effectively he was saying, "if the theory is wrong, then its implications are horrible; but if the theory is true, then it won't have such malignant implications after all!" Which makes no sense.

Well, anyway, I'm on the side of my CompuServe friend: yes, one can consistently believe both in natural causes and that a divine purpose is behind those causes. (Though I don't myself believe in that divine entity.)

 

[docphin5]

Assuming this is a kind of allegory about evolution, creationism and atheism, I'd start by saying that religious people have known for a long time that the world around us is, at least in very large part, a product of natural causes which don't have God's fingerprints on them. There was no great uproar among theists, for example, when Newton showed that the orbits of the planets was due to natural causes. The theory of evolution had an outsized impact because it was not just one more example of that sort of thing, it was something which touched on an area -- the origin of life, especially human life -- which so many theists thought did have God's fingerprints on them, largely because of what the Bible said, but also because of the tendency to see ourselves as special.

Of course it's not inevitable that all theists would react this way. I used to attend a college where anti-evolution activist Phillip Johnson was scheduled to give a talk. Johnson insisted in his books that Darwinism was an incurably malignant influence, because if Homo sapiens arose from mere natural causes, it followed that God either didn't exist or didn't care about us. I asked fellow users of the CompuServe Religion & Philosophy group (anybody else old enough to remember that?) if they had any question to pass along which I could ask Johnson if I got the chance, and one participant offered this:

"As a Christian, I believe that I am alive here and now because that was God's plan for me. At the same time, I accept the fact that, from a biological standpoint, I am alive here and now because certain strands of my parents' DNA came together in a certain way. If I can believe the latter fact, without thinking it proves that God either doesn't exist or doesn't care about me, why can't I equally believe both that the human race is under God's care, and that the human race came about because of a certain set of genetic changes in a population of apes?"

I did get a chance to ask Johnson this, and his answer was, basically, it would be fine to believe both of those things, if there were sufficient evidence that humans were descended from non-human apes, but he didn't think there was. Which I think was both factually wrong (i.e., I think there is evidence to show this beyond reasonable doubt), and made nonsense of his claim about the incurably malignant implications of Darwinism. Effectively he was saying, "well, if Darwinism is true, then it won't have such malignant implications after all!" Which makes no sense.

Well, anyway, I'm on the side of my CompuServe friend: yes, you can believe both in natural causes and that a divine purpose is behind those causes.

Good post.

The only comment I have is that the reaction of evangelicals to “the outsized impact” of evolution may be due to atheists, namely, Dawkins, twisting it as evidence against the existence of God. Rather than critically analyzing his claim they reacted instead by banging their head against a wall. Clearly, the christian you reference was perceptive enough to realize that we are alive and morally conscious because of God’s plan.

My goal in the OP was to demonstrate the hinge upon which the debate hangs, that is, random events. Dawkins and atheists would mischaracterize it as evidence for a blind Watchmaker (aka, Blind God) but there is nothing random to God who knows the beginning from the end and everything in between. For random events are unknown causes (unknown to us but not unknown to God) by another name.

 

[docphin5]

So you think we evangelicals turn red in the face after listening to Dawkins' shallow pablum? Lol.

…Or laugh irrationally. Thanks for proving my point.

 

[Komodo]

Good post.

The only comment I have is that the reaction of evangelicals to “the outsized impact” of evolution may be due to atheists, namely, Dawkins, twisting it as evidence against the existence of God. Rather than critically analyzing his claim they reacted instead by banging their head against a wall. Clearly, the christian you reference was perceptive enough to realize that we are alive and morally conscious because of God’s plan.

I don't see how you can blame Dawkins, since evangelicals were furiously rejecting evolution well before Dawkins was born. (The Scopes Trial, for example, was in 1925.)

 

[docphin5]

I don't see how you can blame Dawkins, since evangelicals were furiously rejecting evolution well before Dawkins was born. (The Scopes Trial, for example, was in 1925.)

There is a lot of blame to go around but I blame Dawkins for trying to turn science against religion. I spent 25+ years in biomedical science with a diverse group of scientists and never heard anyone translate our work into a justification either for or against God as Dawkins did. He never should have done so himself, except that it probably sold more books that way. How many atheists would have bought his book if he had left out his ideology (atheism) about a creator. It stirs controversy and controversy sells.

 

[Yakuda]

Richard Dawkins compares God to a “blind watchmaker”, due to what appears as random events, aka, genetic mutations, producing life on our planet. Atheists swoon and evangelicals turn red in the face.

From Wikipedia, “The Blind Watchmaker”
“After arguing that evolution is capable of explaining the origin of complexity, near the end of the book Dawkins uses this to argue against the existence of God: "a deity capable of engineering all the organized complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution ... must already have been vastly complex in the first place ..." He calls this "postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation."

In the preface, Dawkins states that he wrote the book "to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence."”

Evolution becomes a battleground over the misinformation presented by Dawkins and his followers, that is, that random events produced life on earth not God. The truth is as I stated,

“when all causes are known (to include unknown causes, aka, ”random” causes) then it is certain that God who knows all causes can produce a moral consciousness from a lifeless matter. This he has presumably done.”

Evangelicals should not be opposed to evolution but should accept it as the means to an end, that is, a means for God to produce moral life from nonlife. To him, there is nothing random about it: everything happens for a cause, whether known or unknown by us.

Dawkins is also wrong. Evolution is NOT the only theory of our existence, for our existence existed long before life on this planet, to which, evolution has nothing to say. Moreover, random events were not unknown to God for he knows all causes which produced life from nonlife beginning from the foundation of the world and before.

"appears" to be random

 

[Yakuda]

Assuming this is a kind of allegory about evolution, creationism and atheism, I'd start by saying that religious people have known for a long time that the world around us is, at least in very large part, a product of natural causes which don't have God's fingerprints on them. There was no great uproar among theists, for example, when Newton showed that the orbits of the planets were due to natural causes. The theory of evolution had an outsized impact because it was not just one more example of that sort of thing, it was something which touched on an area -- the origin of life, especially human life -- which so many theists thought did have God's fingerprints on them, largely because of what the Bible said, but also because of the tendency to see ourselves as special.

Of course it's not inevitable that all theists would react this way. I used to attend a college where anti-evolution activist Phillip Johnson was scheduled to give a talk. Johnson insisted in his books that Darwinism was an incurably malignant influence, because if Homo sapiens arose from mere natural causes, it followed that God either didn't exist or didn't care about us. I asked fellow users of the CompuServe Religion & Philosophy group (anybody else old enough to remember that?) if they had any question to pass along which I could ask Johnson if I got the chance, and one participant offered this:

"As a Christian, I believe that I am alive here and now because that was God's plan for me. At the same time, I accept the fact that, from a biological standpoint, I am alive here and now because certain strands of my parents' DNA came together in a certain way. If I can believe the latter fact, without thinking it proves that God either doesn't exist or doesn't care about me, why can't I equally believe both that the human race is under God's care, and that the human race came about because of a certain set of genetic changes in a population of apes?"

I thought this was an excellent question, so when I got a chance, I asked it of Johnson. His answer was, basically, it would be fine to believe both of those things, if there were sufficient evidence that humans were descended from non-human apes, but he didn't think there was. Which I think was both factually wrong (i.e., I think there is evidence to show this beyond reasonable doubt), and made nonsense of his claim about the incurably malignant implications of Darwinism. Effectively he was saying, "if the theory is wrong, then its implications are horrible; but if the theory is true, then it won't have such malignant implications after all!" Which makes no sense.

Well, anyway, I'm on the side of my CompuServe friend: yes, one can consistently believe both in natural causes and that a divine purpose is behind those causes. (Though I don't myself believe in that divine entity.)

So "natural forces" disprove God's existence? Kind of like not getting the pony you prayed for.

 

[TeabagSalad]

Assuming this is a kind of allegory about evolution, creationism and atheism, I'd start by saying that religious people have known for a long time that the world around us is, at least in very large part, a product of natural causes which don't have God's fingerprints on them. There was no great uproar among theists, for example, when Newton showed that the orbits of the planets were due to natural causes. The theory of evolution had an outsized impact because it was not just one more example of that sort of thing, it was something which touched on an area -- the origin of life, especially human life -- which so many theists thought did have God's fingerprints on them, largely because of what the Bible said, but also because of the tendency to see ourselves as special.

Of course it's not inevitable that all theists would react this way. I used to attend a college where anti-evolution activist Phillip Johnson was scheduled to give a talk. Johnson insisted in his books that Darwinism was an incurably malignant influence, because if Homo sapiens arose from mere natural causes, it followed that God either didn't exist or didn't care about us. I asked fellow users of the CompuServe Religion & Philosophy group (anybody else old enough to remember that?) if they had any question to pass along which I could ask Johnson if I got the chance, and one participant offered this:

"As a Christian, I believe that I am alive here and now because that was God's plan for me. At the same time, I accept the fact that, from a biological standpoint, I am alive here and now because certain strands of my parents' DNA came together in a certain way. If I can believe the latter fact, without thinking it proves that God either doesn't exist or doesn't care about me, why can't I equally believe both that the human race is under God's care, and that the human race came about because of a certain set of genetic changes in a population of apes?"

I thought this was an excellent question, so when I got a chance, I asked it of Johnson. His answer was, basically, it would be fine to believe both of those things, if there were sufficient evidence that humans were descended from non-human apes, but he didn't think there was. Which I think was both factually wrong (i.e., I think there is evidence to show this beyond reasonable doubt), and made nonsense of his claim about the incurably malignant implications of Darwinism. Effectively he was saying, "if the theory is wrong, then its implications are horrible; but if the theory is true, then it won't have such malignant implications after all!" Which makes no sense.

Well, anyway, I'm on the side of my CompuServe friend: yes, one can consistently believe both in natural causes and that a divine purpose is behind those causes. (Though I don't myself believe in that divine entity.)

Ah, I see.

Couple of things, first; there is a board on these forums to discuss Evolution. You should probably have posted it there.

Secondly, evolution is not random. You have created what is called a straw man argument.

 

[docphin5]

"appears" to be random

All science accepts the term “random“ as a real thing. But it is poorly defined because it is unknown TO US. Thousands upon thousands of science publications refer to random events and the goal of science is to control them if not eliminate them entirely. So they exist as unknown causes to us. But they are causes none the less which did exactly what God presumably willed them to do, that is, produce a moral intellect from non living things.

Therefore, these unknown causes “appear random”, —coming out of nowhere, to us, but would, in fact, be known causes to God.

 

[docphin5]

Ah, I see.

Couple of things, first; there is a board on these forums to discuss Evolution. You should probably have posted it there.

Secondly, evolution is not random. You have created what is called a straw man argument.

Would you characterize genetic mutations as random?

 

[Yakuda]

All science accepts the term “random“ as a real thing. But it is poorly defined because it is unknown TO US. Thousands upon thousands of science publications refer to random events and the goal of science is to control them if not eliminate them entirely. So they exist as unknown causes to us. But they are causes none the less which did exactly what God presumably willed them to that is produce a moral intellect from non living things.

Therefore, these unknown causes “appear random”, —coming out of nowhere, to us, but are, in fact known causes to God.

I had accept in quotations not random

 

[stiggy wiggy]

…Or laugh irrationally. Thanks for proving my point.

I proved your point? So you're claiming that when people laugh out loud they turn red? Stick to fables. Aesop.

 

[docphin5]

Ah, I see.

Couple of things, first; there is a board on these forums to discuss Evolution. You should probably have posted it there.

I am discussing how an atheist, namely, Dawkins, has mischaracterized God as ”The Blind Watchmaker” due to random events. Given that atheists here recommend his book then it pertains to atheism.

 

[docphin5]

I proved your point? So you're claiming that when people laugh out loud they turn red? Stick to fables. Aesop.

Keep digging that hole you are in.

 

[stiggy wiggy]

Keep digging that hole you are in.

If you're going to employ stupid hackneyed metaphors at least learn what they mean. In this case a "hole" would indicate a negative rhetorical position I have created for myself by what? By correcting your belief that laughing turns people red? First the dumb fable, then the laughing turns you red implication, now the screwed up metaphor. This just isn't your day, is it?