97% Chance Richard Swinburne is an Idiot
I have arrived at this number using some very complex mathematical formulas. It’s math, so you have to believe it. If you want to see exactly how I figured it out, buy my book, The Idiocy of Richard Swinburne.
OK, now that I’m done being sarcastic (mostly), let’s get to the story. Dr. Richard Swinburne of Oxford University was in Melbourne last night to give a lecture at the Australian Catholic University. He told the audience that it is 97% certain that Jesus was raised from the dead.
This conclusion was reached after a complex series of calculations. In simplified terms, it began with a single proposition: the probability was one in two that God exists. Next, if God exists, the probability was one in two that he became incarnate. Further, there was a one in 10 probability that the gospels would report the life and resurrection of Jesus in the form they do. Finally, the clincher: the probability that we would have all this evidence if it wasn’t true was one in 1000.
I just don’t know where to begin. Well, let’s just dive into it. Dr. Swinburne’s argument is that there is a 25% chance that god exists AND became incarnate (.5 x .5), but there is a 97% chance that god exists AND became incarnate AND rose from the dead. Interesting. Even taking his assumptions as given, this is a stupid argument.
However, let’s analyze the assumptions. When I buy a lottery ticket, either I will win or I will lose. Does that mean there is a 50% chance that I will win just because there are two possible outcomes? If so, I feel pretty silly that I haven’t been playing the lottery. As for the 10% chance that the gospels would report Jesus’ life as they do, what the hell does that even mean? I can go to the book store and read the life stories of King Arthur (by several authors), Harry Potter (in several volumes) and Jimmy Carter, but they are all fictional characters. Well, you get the point.
The last part really burns me. He sets the probablility that we would have “all this evidence” if it weren’t true at .1%. What evidence? The shroud of Turin? The myriad Holy Grails? The hundred thousand pieces of the “true cross” sold for $10 a pop? Elvis burned into a piece of whole wheat toast?
I hereby issue a mathematical fatwa. If any of you can email me a convincing (and entertaining) mathematical proof that Dr. Swinburne doesn’t exist, I will publish it as a post on this blog (with credit to the author, of course). I’ve only taken one statistics course, or I would do it myself.
~I AM~
July 20th, 2005 at at 12:16 am
Come on I Am! Swinburnology is easy! I learned it in hippostercusology.
The chances of Hell existing are 1 in 2
A chance in Hell is 1 in a trillion
The chances of Hell freezing over are 1 in a billion
The chances of Dr. Swinburne knowing his ass from a hole in the ground are around 1 in 2 trillion.
Ergo, There is a 50 % chance that Hell exists. If Hell does exist, then it will freeze over before there is a chance in Hell of Dr. Swinburne knowing his ass from a hole in the ground. And if Dr. Swinburne doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, that means there isn’t a chance in Hell that Hell exists, which would then preclude Dr. Swinburne from existing as well.
Perhaps that’s also why athletes give 110 % and Christians only tithe 10%
July 20th, 2005 at at 12:25 am
Awh man my head hurts just thinking about it. But If I’m not mistaking I did math like that when I was 5-6 yrs old. It was also about that time that me and my buds believed that if we held onto a leaf and concentrated hard enough the leaf would hold us. I think we got it from roadrunner and coyote. Broke my ass and flunked 1st grade math. JIM
July 20th, 2005 at at 8:06 am
Need I add that if there is a 97% probability that Jesus rose from the dead, then God doesn’t exist. If God did exist and wanted Jesus to rise from the dead, then it would be 100% sure, not 97%.
Unless he means probability given what we know, which, given the enormity of the event, should still be at 99-100%, not 97%. How can there be any doubt of a man coming back from the dead and firing like a rocket to the firmament any more than there is doubt of the moon landings ? Well, maybe that’s a bad example…
July 20th, 2005 at at 11:05 am
The volume of the observable universe: 3e85 cm^3
The volume of Dr. Swinburne (idealized to a 6-foot tall 2-foot wide bologna) is about 5.338e5 cm^3.
Therefore, even if I’m off by a few orders of magnitude on the Doctor’s volume, the ratio of Dr.Swinburne volume to visible universe volume is around 1:5.62e79.
This is also the approximate probablility that any given cubic centimeter of the universe is occupied by a cubic centimeter of Dr.Swinburne.
Those are pretty long odds. In fact, a given cm^3 of space is much more likely to contain nothing at all than a cm^3 of Dr. Swinburne, so it’s quite possible he doesn’t exist at all.
July 20th, 2005 at at 11:32 am
A mathematical Fatwa! LOL for some reason that line just cracked me up.
July 20th, 2005 at at 2:00 pm
All of this reminds me of a solution I came up with once while sitting in traffic. I figured out how to increase the capacity of the highway without taking up any more room. If you start with a 3 lane road and add a lane, that’s a 33.3% increase in capacity. If you then destroy that lane, you’ve only reduced capacity by 25%. Every time you add and destroy the lane, you get an extra 8.3%. Do it 12 times and you’ve doubled capacity. Simple.
July 21st, 2005 at at 12:40 pm
lol@I Am’s traffic solution. Brillliant!
If I were in charge at Oxford and this guy didn’t have tenure, I would want to fire him for academic dishonesty. Saying things like that is completely outrageous and reflects poorly on the university.
July 27th, 2005 at at 6:58 pm
Still abusing probability theory, at his age? I read one of his early books (_The Existence of God_), and while the resurrection wasn’t the specific topic, probabilities were the tool of choice back then as well. I suppose this makes sense. There’s overwhelming evidence that people are extremely bad at probabilities, so taking this approach increases Swinburne’s likelyhood that he’ll make errors in favor of conclusions he likes without noticing, and also decreases the likelyhood of his errors being caught by others.