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And apparently, its got a 97% chance of being true, at least according to one Richard Swinburne. Here's the article. Of course, course whether you believe this or not is irrelevant. My more important question is how the hell can you figure out something like this using maths and logical progressions? This is something that's faith based, not something to be proven. Please don't turn this into a if you aint "insert religion or lack there of" here then you suck and you're wrong arguement.

Apologia puts faith in lap of the odds
By Barney Zwartz
July 19, 2005



It is 97 per cent certain God raised Jesus from the dead - based on logic and mathematics, not faith - says an Oxford professor, Richard Swinburne.

"New Testament scholars say the only evidence are witnesses in the four gospels: that's only 5 per cent of the evidence," said Professor Swinburne, a leading philosopher of religion.

"We can't judge the question of the resurrection unless we ask first whether there's reason to suppose there is a God, second if we have reason to suppose he would become incarnate, and third, if he did, whether he would live the sort of life Jesus did."

Professor Swinburne, who gave a public lecture at the Australian Catholic University last night, said probability calculus showed a probability of 97 per cent. The probability God existed was one in two. That is, God either did or didn't. And it was one in two that God became incarnate.

Professor Swinburne suggested a one-in-10 probability that the gospels would report the life and resurrection of Jesus as they did. The chance of all these factors coming together, if the resurrection was not true, was one in 1000.
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But Colin Sutherland, a professor of mathematics at the University of NSW - and an agnostic - said he suspected the resurrection was something mathematics could not prove.

"In general, mathematics is able to tell you that if one thing is true, that something else is true. But you have to make your assumptions very clear," he said.

"The conclusions you reach in this kind of discussion often simply reflect the assumptions that you put in at the beginning."

Professor Sutherland questioned the assumption that there was a 50:50 probability that God existed and a 50:50 probability that he became incarnate.

If you find the figures baffling, the mathematical calculations in full appear in Dr Swinburne's book The Resurrection of God Incarnate (Oxford University Press).

Something tells me this guy never took Mathematics.

That 50/50 probability thing is just plain wrong.

You could use that argument for EVERYTHING.

"You have a 50/50 chance of being hit by a truck tomorrow, because either you are hit or you aren't."

"You have a 50/50 chance of flying, because you can either fly, or you can't."

"This blue ball has a 50/50 chance of being blue because it is either blue or it isn't"

Here's my proof:

God created Math so obviously he is real.

X = God.
Y = Math.

Considering we know Math exists, the statement "X -> Y" is only true if X is true, therefore God is real.

Its a very interesting theory. I don't understand why some people feel the need to prove He existed. Interesting all the same.

If X is false, X -> Y is always true.

This Swinburne guy is ridiculous anyway. This "97% chance" thing is depends on if God exists anyway. What he means is "given God does exist, and probably a shitload of other circumstances are true, there is a 97% chance that God raised Jesus from the dead."

I mean, Swinburne claims there's a 50% chance of God existing, meaning there's a 50% chance that Got doesn't exist and hence couldn't have raised Jesus from the dead, so there would be no possible way for the probability of God raising Jesus from the dead to be over 50%

Actually it's not a very interesting theory - it's not a theory at all, a theory is something that must be able to stand up to all tests. This idea is not even testable. What's more, they claim that they're using math and logic, but the fact that they're using numbers and the word 'therefore' do not mean they're using math and logic. This is honestly one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. It is complete made-up nonsense.

Corey said it perfectly with the 50:50 thing. Those are just made up numbers - the fact that there are two possibilities (ie. there is a god or there isn't) does not make it equally probably for either to be true.

Anyway, I don't fancy wasting my time fully explaining the utter ignorance and stupidity with which this "theory" came about, but anyone who has actually studied probability and logic even in the remotest sense would be able to see at a glance how not only does this idea have flaws, but it is based on made-up systems of logic and probability with no regard for reality whatsoever.

faninor wrote:If X is false, X -> Y is always true.

You are absolutely correct. I made a mistake. I meant Y -> X.

Richard Swinburne = pwned.

/got nothin

To be fair, this guy IS an Oxford professor, so he isn't a total idiot. But it is clear he doesn't teach mathematics.

I used to go to Swinburne's philosophy of religion lectures when I was at Oxford. He was a little odd, but not totally so. I also think he marked my thesis - which I got a good mark in - so that gives him lots of bonus points in my book, even if that whole 97% thing is rather dodgy.

"Well, either this Susie girl wrote a report or she didn't. So that's 50% right there..."

If the article has any credibility it looks like he's just pulling numbers out of his ass to me...
but the guy who wrote that article is dumbing things down a lot, if he even bothered to read the thesis (there's no way an oxford professor comes up with something that vague)

So i won't hold it against Swinburne unless i actually read what he has to say, but either way it seems pretty impossible to put something like that onto a percentage.

I'm sure there is some pretty cool math involved to get that percentage, but as someone stated, it all relies on the idea that God exists which is supposively a 50% chance. If God doesn't exist than it is a 0% chance.

On a side note, here is one of my favorite proofs:

http://www.skypoint.com/~camilian/humor/GirlsEvil.shtml

wow... you people really go crazy over such simple things.

the guy is not an idiot... he's obviously pretty smart since people on an OLP message board are discussing something that he (or whoever) came up with. You may not agree, but you really have no right to say he's wrong.

Besides that, I will stimulate your creative minds with a couple words of wisdom. I can't wait to read your arguments. The people who's beliefs are most threatened will reply the fastest and with the most anger. It's a pity that we can't seem to take new ideas as being possible before trying to destroy them. The whole world would change quite rapidly if we did.

There is no such thing as right or wrong. We base our understanding of "right" and "wrong" with our present day morals. However, our morals are primitive. We are not born knowing the difference between "right" and "wrong"... we are born knowing the difference between "what works" and "what doesn't work". We create "right" and "wrong".

For example.

Suicide... we say it's "wrong" to take a gun to your head and shoot yourself when you're suicidal. If death in this case is unsuccessful, the person may face criminal charges. (mosy likely psychiatric help)...... depression is addictive.

on the other hand, we understand that smoking cigarettes pollutes our bodies, causing various forms of cancer- but we don't see it as suicide when it's pretty much the same thing. It's just an issue of time here. Sure we have smoking laws and all that, but come on... cigarettes are addictive. Though 95% of the people who die of lung cancer are non smokers (they quit when they find out they have it).

I wonder if that bullet took a little longer to get to your brain if you would second guess your choice to pull the trigger.

If making life work on this planet is your goal, shooting yourself or smoking is not "wrong".... it just doesn't work when trying to achieve that goal.

This "works" and "doesn't work" philosophy can be applied anywhere, and it will work. If used more often in society, it could end judgement... we might actually get along!

now, keeping that in mind... I go on to my next point.

God is not one all powerful super force seperated from us... God is one all powerful super force that is one with us. We are God. We're just too primitive a species to imagine ourselves as being sparks of unconditional Love. We're too blind to see that we're one with everyone and everything in this universe... we just want to be better than anyone else and abuse "power" when it's given to us. So we create judgement within our morals. We claim that God is seperate from us as he watches overhead judging our every move.

Then again, not everyone thinks this way. I know I make the religious God look really bad here, but for thousands of years we thought this way. 1st century beleifs do not work in a 21st Century society. That is why there is so much war all over this planet. Religion has caused more war than anything else in history. Mathematics can calculate that.

anyway, I did what the maker of this topic asked us not to do. Oh well. This site is too confusing to find a religious topic anyway. Sorry guys... if trying to have a pleasant conversation with no arguing is what we're trying to do here... I guess my post might not work lol.

-Kruno

Nice post. However I disagree, there IS a right and wrong, or rather, a correct and incorrect.

2 + 2 = 5 is incorrect (or wrong).

2 + 2 = 4 is correct (or right).

Therefore, it is possible for the man in question to be wrong (or incorrect), mathematically speaking.

Mathematically/Knowledge wise, there are correct and incorrects. But I believe what Kruno said is very true, that our moral rights and wrongs arent necessarily right and wrong, only what is acceptable at the time in society.

Sure, I agree with that also. But we aren't debating morals here. We are talking about a guy who claims to have "mathematically proven" there is a 97% chance that God resurrected Jesus. Putting aside religious beliefs, I question the math behind that. What Kruno stated doesn't really have anything to do with the conversation.

yeah what I said doesn't exactly have much to do with the original statement. The debate going on here before my post just got me started

mathematically, correct and incorrect are sometimes referred to right and wrong... but I was talking of morality. I know you understand.

when talking mathematics.

1 + 1 doesn't always equal 2.... 1 + 1 can equal 11...

so given

1 + 1 = 2
and
1 + 1 = 11

it is therefore safe to assume that neither equation is incorrect, or "wrong". It just matters which way you go about answering the question. I believe having 2 contradicting answers from a single question is called a dichotomy... or in this case, a divine dichotomy.

Scientifically, there aren't many answers... most answers usually create more questions, some questioning the very answer they came up with...which is what makes mathematics infinite (like calculating the circumference of any circle... it will never be 100% accurate)

So it can be safe to assume that God is mathematical since mathematics are infinite with no beginning and no end... and black holes are where God divided 1 by 0 lol... (though not far from the truth because black holes are known as singularities) But that doesn't answer anything... unless of course Jesus was a black hole... and there are probably some religions out there that teach that haha.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if mathematically you can prove the possibility that God resurrected Jesus, you'll probably just end up with tons more questions and variables... which makes the 97% not very high at all.

Also... think of a course you take in school. Let's say you end up with a 50% at the end of the course... Do you really know only half of what was taught? You'd first have to assume that 100% of the course was actually taught in the first place (almost impossible these days), but then other variables come into play. Maybe you knew more than half, but 50% of the questions asked on a particular test were things you didn't know in the beginning, but learned afterwards (when correcting the test for example). Maybe you knew everything in the course, but slacked off and handed assignments in late with deductions, or just didn't bother doing them. This goes on and on.


jeez I sound so sophisticated (and I probably spelled that word wrong).... I recently completed an astronomy course... that probably has something to do with it

-Kruno