Quote :

"an act of god with signifcant or extraordinary impact"

but what is an "act of god?" What is "god?"

4/28/2010 2:09:30 PM

that's a pretty good question

I'd say it's up to you

[Edited on April 28, 2010 at 2:11 PM. Reason : grammerz]

4/28/2010 2:11:00 PM

That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.

4/28/2010 2:14:28 PM

why?

I'll tell you what, maybe I can do a little better:
I'd say god is something you consider to be a higher power than yourself and of supreme importance to yourself and the world.

God's different things to different people. Some people would say it's a part of them and everything, some people might say it's a dude that created and controls everything, some might say it's zen, etc. It's different things to different people which makes it hard to come up with a total definition.

[Edited on April 28, 2010 at 2:31 PM. Reason : moar]

4/28/2010 2:22:32 PM

KING DOUCHEBAG ITT

MY BELIEFS, OR LACK THERE OF, ARE BETTER THAN YOURS. YOU'RE AN IDIOT. I RULE ALL



[Edited on April 28, 2010 at 2:54 PM. Reason : RAWR RAWR RAWR]

4/28/2010 2:54:04 PM

Quote :

" Given that there are ~1,000 pages in the bible, maybe 10,000 things you could call passages. How many people do you think struggle with an issue in life and randomly turn to the bible for an answer? There are likely (low estimate) 50 million active religious folk here in the US, and over the span of ten years in their lives, most likely 50% of them have had an issue and opened the bible to reflect on it. If we assume that the bible contains a passage for only about 1% of the situations you could encounter in your life - then when any individual opens the bible to a random passage to reflect on something in their life, the probability they turn to an appropriate passage is 1 in 1 million (A miracle!!) However, we have 25 million people that are doing this within the last ten years, so the probability of your situation occurring in the US is 1 - (1-1/1,000,000)^25,000,000. Which is, oh, about 1. Not a miracle"

4/28/2010 3:13:21 PM

you people are TOTALLY missing the point with that argument

if there were no God, then yes, I would find a perfectly fitting passage maybe 1% of the time, say, by the laws of chance

and yes, this sort of thing would therefore happen thousands upon thousands of times in American history

but the odds that it would happen in this one isolated instance, on this one occasion when I just happened to explicitly ask God for a sign (which I had never done before) are still 1%

I mean, if you claim that a trait is possessed by only 1% of the population, and then you talked to a random person and they just HAPPENED have that trait, then you'd have to think that either A. something REALLY improbable had just happened, or B. some of your hypotheses were wrong

so you guys are claiming that something really improbable happened, and I'm claiming that God was actually involved

but this business about extending the phenomenon to the whole population is totally invalid. I AM a math major, I actually specialize in probability, and I know what the fuck I'm talking about here.

4/28/2010 3:34:54 PM

if god had a name

what would it be

4/28/2010 3:38:45 PM

Quote :

"but this business about extending the phenomenon to the whole population is totally invalid."

How? just because you're viewing the event from your own perspective doesn't make your perspective important in anyway whatsoever. You're ignoring the nine hundred thousand times someone else opened the bible to a random passage, and then had to flip to another page to get what they were looking for.

4/28/2010 3:58:01 PM

Quote :

"just because you're viewing the event from your own perspective doesn't make your perspective important in anyway whatsoever"

yes, it does. I'm measuring the event from my perspective. the event that it would happen to ME has probability <1%, and it did, and that's really fucking unlikely.

Just because it's gonna happen to SOMEBODY, that doesn't make it likely that it'll happen to any given person, myself included.

I repeat the following:

Quote :

"if you claim that a trait is possessed by only 1% of the population, and then you talked to a random person and they just HAPPENED have that trait, then you'd have to think that either A. something REALLY improbable had just happened, or B. some of your hypotheses were wrong"

4/28/2010 4:07:04 PM

Things with <1% likelihood happen to you just about every second of every day, you just don't recognize them. What's the probability that the dead pixel in your screen occurred at the location it did? What's the probability that your neighbor has the name he has? What's the probability that your front lawn has the number of blades of grass it does? These are tiny probabilities, but they are not evidence of anything at all. The fact that you talked to god about it before hand isn't the cause of the coincidence, its part of the coincidence and built into the probability of the event occuring. You're applying special meaning to this situation because the coincidence is self referencing. If society thought having a neighbor by the name of BubbleBobble was a sign from god, most of the time you'd be disappointed, but one lucky gal out there isn't. We all know this isn't a miracle because we don't presume god cares about our neighbors.

I fail to see how something with near 100% likelihood of happening in this country should be considered a miracle. And if you're going to define a miracle as 'something extremely unlikely of occurring to me' as opposed to 'something extremely unlikely occurring.' You must live a continually orgasmic life, just basking in his glory, because the probability of anything in your life happening to you right now is minuscule; yet, it's all happening.

4/28/2010 4:54:17 PM

yes, unlikely shit happens to me (and everyone) all the time, but very little of it is meaningful. I'm talking about stuff that happens by chance (or by design) when I'm genuinely interested in the outcome. Nobody would consider living next to BubbleBobble a miracle (no disrespect to him.) You're basically claiming (I think) that since unlikely occurences in unimportant situations are not miracles, unlikely occurences in important situations are never miracles, either. And that's not really justified.

But anyway, dude, after much thought, I think I've got this figured out

we are looking at two different events

My event:
I pray for a sign, open my Bible at random, and read a passage that is easily among the 0.1% most relevant to my life, and the most inspiring

the odds that that would happen by chance are obviously <.001, which is a pretty damned low probability...therefore I conclude that it DIDN'T happen by chance, and therefore that God heard and answered me, and therefore that a miracle has occured. That's really the most reasonable conclusion to draw, for me.

Your event:
some stranger posts in a Wolfweb thread on miracles about a "miracle" which has happened to him. Basically, it's something that was certainly unlikely, but which was bound to happen to people now and then. So what's basically happened, from YOUR perspective, is that something really unlikely has happened to SOMEBODY on the Wolfweb, and they perceived it as a miracle. And that's a perfectly possible event; nothing strange in it at all.

So I am inclined, after much consideration, to think that we are actually, genuinely both right. And really, that's not so terribly strange; even from a strict mathematical standpoint, probability is largely dependent upon one's point of view. Pretty cool how that worked out.

4/28/2010 5:09:31 PM

Absolutely correct: from your perspective an unlikely event happened to YOU

From my perspective, and unlikely event happened to SOMEONE, and like all unlikely events with a lot of trials, this isn't all that unlikely.

We could stop there, that's great. But then our definition of a miracle is reduced to 'An event that is pretty likely to happen to someone, but pretty unlikely to happen to anyone in particular.' If you're O.K. with that definition, great. But as you experienced, you're not going to see any jaws dropping, because from every outside observer, the event was more likely to occur than not. And in my mind, that's a very weak definition of a miracle.


FWIW, this is the same reasoning I apply to our existence, we think it's miraculous that we're here, but only because we're the ones experiencing it. If we weren't, we wouldn't think it's miraculous at all. (How improbable that our earth has the perfect chemical conditions for life! not really, if it were anything else, we wouldn't be around to reflect on that)



[Edited on April 28, 2010 at 5:31 PM. Reason : .]

4/28/2010 5:23:55 PM

Quote :

"FWIW, this is the same reasoning I apply to our existence, we think it's miraculous that we're here, but only because we're the ones experiencing it. If we weren't, we wouldn't think it's miraculous at all."

I agree with you here. Calling existence "miraculous" is more profound than what the ICP came up with; but not by much.

Quote :

"'An event that is pretty likely to happen to someone, but pretty unlikely to happen to anyone in particular.'"

I wouldn't quite define it that way. First of all, the context matters a lot; living next to BubbleBobble isn't a miracle. And secondly, before this unlikely event happened, I asked God to make it happen; and that is, essentially, why I'm claiming it as a miracle.

Quote :

"you're not going to see any jaws dropping, because from every outside observer, the event was more likely to occur than not."

truth.

4/28/2010 5:29:06 PM

Quote :

"And secondly, before this unlikely event happened, I asked God to make it happen; and that is, essentially, why I'm claiming it as a miracle."

Not to belabor the point, but asking god was part of the event. I.e.

Event 1 (Living next to BubbleBobble)

Event 2 (Asking god for a sign and receiving something that can reasonably be interpreted as a sign)

Asking god was part of the unlikely event, not a cause of the unlikely event.

[Edited on April 28, 2010 at 5:34 PM. Reason : .]

4/28/2010 5:33:47 PM

I don't get how my name got brought into this

4/28/2010 5:43:12 PM

YES, YES I DO

CJ LESLIE IS COMING TO STATE

BAM, MOTHER FUCKERS

4/28/2010 5:44:26 PM

ok anyway just thought I'd post this here

as a reference point for those of you taking this thread otherwise seriously

4/28/2010 5:47:47 PM

Quote :

"Asking god was part of the unlikely event, not a cause of the unlikely event."

yes, from what I've said so far, that is true...although one could with equal validity consider the probability of receiving a sign, given that one has asked God, in which case asking God would NOT be part of the event. In this case, one could consider the probability that asking God caused, or at any rate influenced, the event. But then, of course, I would have to rejustify my position under this new formulation. Which I think I could do, but this argument has runs its course, methinks.

Good game.

4/28/2010 6:22:25 PM

Controversial ICP theory sparks heavy debate about religion ITT.

Also, SaabTurbo proves how atheists can be just as pushy about their beliefs as fundamental Christians ITT and thus shows how religious affiliation has no correlation to the kindness or worth of individuals. ITT.

[Edited on April 28, 2010 at 8:21 PM. Reason : .]

4/28/2010 8:09:41 PM

Quote :

"PURE MOTHERFUCKIN MAGIC"

4/29/2010 3:35:34 PM

WE GOT A THEORY

4/29/2010 3:39:43 PM

THIS SHIT'LL BLOW YA

Quote :

"MOTHA FUCKIN MIND"

4/29/2010 3:40:37 PM

Quote :

"YES, YES I DO CJ LESLIE IS COMING TO STATE BAM, MOTHER FUCKERS"

hahaha. love it.

4/29/2010 3:41:55 PM

4/29/2010 3:50:30 PM

I always did wonder how magnets worked

4/29/2010 3:50:46 PM

Quote :

"GETTIN ME PISSED"

4/29/2010 3:54:15 PM

ITT I am amazed that a person actually thinks like [user]JefferyBSG[/user]

4/29/2010 4:01:56 PM

^Nah, that's not amazing...Everything chillin underwater, that shit'll blow ya motha fuckin mind.

4/29/2010 4:08:48 PM

Quote :

" you don't have to be high to look in the sky "

4/29/2010 8:07:16 PM

The first artist to ever rhyme the word scientist with pissed.

4/29/2010 8:09:08 PM

You're going a bit far by calling them "artists" son.

4/29/2010 8:10:06 PM

magic everywhere in this bitch

6/3/2010 3:19:10 AM

If you heat vinegar and heavy cream together, you can make a plastic. Nobody knows how that miracle works. NOBODY.

6/3/2010 3:20:19 AM

ITH'S THJUST THERE IN THE AIR

6/3/2010 3:20:37 AM

itsjustthereintheair

ijtita

6/3/2010 3:46:50 AM

I'm AstralAdvent and i approved this bumpage

6/3/2010 12:53:02 PM

9/20/2010 3:12:28 AM

9/20/2010 3:15:01 AM

List of miracles
Oceans
Stars
Mountains
Trees
The Seven Seas
Everything chillin’ under water
Snow
Rain
Fog
Long necked giraffes
Pet Cats
Pet Dogs
Child birth
The sun
The moon
Mars
The Milky Way
Fucking shooting stars
UFOs
Rivers
Niagra Falls
The Pyramids of Giza
Everything you believed in as a kid
Fucking rainbows
A pelican that tried to eat ICP’s cell phone somewhere along the San Francisco Bay
Music (u can't hold it in ur hands)
Pure, mother fucking magic
Water
Fire
Air
Dirt
Fucking magnets
Solar eclipses
Vicious weather
15,000 juggalos together
Metamorphosis
Children looking like their parents when wearing the same gay clown makeup
Crows
Ghosts
The Midnight Coast
The Wonders of the World
Mysteries

9/28/2010 6:14:02 PM

i think it's a miracle that people actually believe in a christian god and the bible. i mean seriously, have you read some of the stuff in there?

9/28/2010 6:32:02 PM

Quote :

"if there really is a god does he have time to deal with all 6 billion people on the planet individually? i think not"

HAHA God is God and is Epic. he can do what he likes when he likes where he likes, including dealing with 6 billion people he created.

9/28/2010 7:50:26 PM

whoops

[Edited on September 28, 2010 at 7:54 PM. Reason : l]

9/28/2010 7:53:53 PM

^^^ So hypothetically

What if every Christan was wrong and died and there was no God or Heaven. Nothing would happen.
but what if every non believer and those who deny existence of God died and there is a God. Then what would happen...? A lot more than nothing would happen.

Also you can't preach to people who don't want to be preached to. that's like a criminal chasing a cop down and not the other way around.



[Edited on September 28, 2010 at 7:55 PM. Reason : 0]

9/28/2010 7:54:18 PM

Goldengirl can't be serious.

9/28/2010 8:03:33 PM

adam8778 speaks!!!

listen up

9/28/2010 8:59:56 PM

I'm still waiting for an answer.

9/28/2010 11:14:11 PM

so goldengirl, what you're saying is that since no one can be sure about god, we should go ahead and believe in him "just in case"? wow.

9/28/2010 11:30:37 PM

I am personally sure there is a God. Christians wouldn't be Christians, Jews wouldn't be Jews, Muslims wouldn't be Muslims and so forth if they didn't believe that God exists.

You still aren't answering my Hypothetical question.

What if you die and then God appears to you. What would you do if he asked you why didn't you believe? and what if he tells you because you never believed you have to go to hell. What would you do?

Now if I die and there isn't a God (which I completely don't believe that) nothing would happen right. my body just rots. What have I lost? nothing.

[Edited on September 28, 2010 at 11:37 PM. Reason : now if I die ]

9/28/2010 11:35:32 PM

set em up

9/29/2010 12:00:06 AM