First a disclaimer: I am not a true devout...nor am I total atheist. My relationship with God, as with many, is sadly based on mutual convenience (i.e. whenever it is convenient to both God and myself to exchange notes at a particular place!) And I often try to hide my lazy nature by claiming to Mom that it is definitely not necessary to go to temples to have belief in God!
But then unlike me, who there are some people who claim to believe in God, but instead of relying on an abstract concept - faith, rely on hard facts to prove the existence of an even more abstract concept- God Himself!
Even while the scientists in CERN are trying to disprove the existence of God by recreating through the LHC experiment what is supposed to be God's biggest miracle- 'Creation of Universe', there is a theoretical physicist who is trying to use science itself for calculating the possibility of God being in existence (using the solid mathematical principles of probability). And the result is...67%!!!
I have just finished reading a fantastic book called 'THE PROBABILITY OF GOD' by Dr. Stephen Unwin who has set out to mathematically and objectively determine what are the odds of God being in existence, without giving an actual 'Yes' or 'No' answer whether there IS INDEED a God. And for that Dr. Unwin started off with an initial 50-50 chance- same as a coin toss- for God having an existence in this world.
Using then what is known as Bayes theorem (apparently, a popularly used probability formula), Dr. Unwin then examines the evidence gathered around 6 parameters ( recognition of goodness, moral evil, natural evil, prayers, resurrection & religious experiences) by assigning them grades s, based on how God's presence affects their existence in this world (If your eyes are glazing over, keep reading. I'm about to wind this math business soon). And viola, he found after factoring these probability of evidences, the probability of God being in existence increases from the initial 50% to 67%!!
But the most interesting thing is Unwin has included everything- from natural disasters to supposed miracles, from existence of wickedness to propensity of suffering, from evil to philanthropic nature of man- by grading the probability of their existence both in presence and absence of God! The theory is obviously a big hit- Considering the fact there are equal numbers of physicists praising & criticizing it :)
Interesting premise, surely. Lolz.
