In his novel, “Slaughterhouse Five”, Kurt Vonnegut describes the end of the world. (A great book BTW).
A Tralfamadorian test pilot panics, pushes the wrong button and the universe vaporizes….not just earth……. the entire universe. As a hypothetical, imagine that this actually happens. There is nothing left but an endless cloud of subatomic particles, nothing larger than a proton. Visualize this cloud for a minute……….minute subatomic particles floating in a black sea of nothing for as far as you can imagine. This is essentially what the scientists tell us existed right after the “big bang”.
Now, ask yourself this question:
“After the Tralfamadorian disaster, do you believe that this cloud of subatomic particles, floating in an endless sea of nothing, will spontaneously reconstitute the earth and everything in it just as it is today……all by itself…..purely by random accident.” Remember……..we are talking about the real world, not a theoretical construct.
Choose one answer:
YES
NO
IT’S POSSIBLE BUT IMPROBABLE
If you answered YES, then you are a secular humanist/Darwinist.
If you answered NO, then you are a creationist.
If you answered POSSIBLE BUT IMPROBABLE, then things get complicated. You are exploring the boundary between improbable and impossible. In the real world, there is no clear line. What is theoretically possible may be practically impossible. The theoretical world and the real world are often not the same.
So, we go to the next question:
What is the probability that the universe and our earth will spontaneously reconstite themselves after the Tralfamadorian disaster?
1 chance in 10
1 chance in 100
1 chance in 1,000
1 chance in a million
1 chance in 10 to the 50th power.
As you can see, you reach a point where improbable effectively becomes impossible. Some statisticians use 10 to the 50th power (10 with 50 zeroes). This is great theory……..but 10 to the 50th is hard to apply in real life.
I find the Tom Clancy analysis more useful. In his book “Patriot Games”, a spy tells his boss something (and I’m paraphrasing). The boss says “how confident are you?” The spy says “I’m not absolutely sure”. The boss says, “nothing is absolutely for certain…… but, are you sure enough?” By that the boss means “are you sure enough to act based on the information?” This is probability made practical.
So……….. are you sure enough that the universe will spontaneously regenerate itself after the Tralfamadorian disaster to reject the possibility of an intelligent creator?
Are you sure enough to reject the possibility of paradise………of hell?