A hypothetical question, especially for the atheists and skeptics in the audience...

WouldYouKindly

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Most likely I will never say. More likely seemingly divine sounds a lot less definite.

First, it's not going to be something people did or had a large influence in. People doing ANYTHING is not divine.

You know what? That lady who survived a freefall from truly ridiculous heights. Seriously, if there's anyone who had an honest to goodness impervious reason in believing there was a benevolent God watching over her, it was that lady.
 

Candlejack000

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Joccaren said:
Candlejack000 said:
What makes me believe that there is either some higher power is science itself. That is to say that the law of conservation of energy/mass teaches that mass can not be created or destroyed only changed, but the only explanation that scientists can come up with for how the universe came into existence is that all mass was concentrated in one tiny point in space which than exploded. So in my mind something must have created that matter.
What created the thing that created that matter?
Its just adding a middle man.
The answer Christians would give to this situation is "God created the singularity before the big bang" [Assuming they believe in the big bang].
The question that stems from this is what created god?
At some point there is something that has to have existed without something else to create it. Why this has to be a deity and not simply the universe/singularity-before-the-universe is beyond me.
If someone far smarter than me can explain how the universe just pooped into being I may very well give up on higher powers existing. Until then I chose to believe in a non-interfering deity because to accept that the universe simply came into being messes up a huge part of my understanding of the world. Once the universe can exist from nothing then so could anything. So instead of evolving from apes a group of humans large enough to sustain a population just appeared on the Earth, after all while we may be living and intelligent we are made mass just like the self-creating universe.
 

Knife

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Schadrach said:
If you were forced to choose some person, place, thing, or event throughout all of human history as "most likely to have been the result of supernatural or divine influence (christian or otherwise)", what would it be?

No, you aren't allowed to choose "nothing, because I don't believe in that shit" as the whole point is to see what people end up picking when forced to actually choose, and that isn't an answer, it's a refusal to answer.
Reading some of the comments on this thread I came to realise that what you wrote and what you meant may have been 2 different things. That is to say your phrasing sucks and that's why you're getting unwanted answers (that may seem like unwillingness to participate in hypothetical discussion).

Your question if I now understand it correctly should be something like this:
"If you believed in the supernatural, what person, place, thing, or event throughout all of human history would have most likely been the result of supernatural or divine influence (christian or otherwise)"

I suggest you edit your OP.

Captcha: more chocolate

The gods of captcha demand more chocolate sacrifice.
 

MagunBFP

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Compatriot Block said:
MagunBFP said:
Why? Thats like saying to a Christian... "If something proved the Christian faith to be false, what do you think it would be?"
No it's really not. And your spectacular arrogance in reducing people's faith to a "crutch" is not beneficial to your appearance.

A better analogy would be asking a Christian, "If you were an atheist, what would your strongest/most personally important reason be?"
In regards to my arrogance, people agreeing that something they don't know or understand much have been caused by an agency that is both all powerful and unknowable is pretty much my definition of a crutch. I didn't mean to drink until I blacked out, the devil made me do it... OMG that city was wiped off the map obviously god punished them for their lack of faith, etc, etc.

You pose a question that is similar but doesn't really capture the same as the flavour as the OPs
Schadrach said:
If you were forced to choose some person, place, thing, or event throughout all of human history as "most likely to have been the result of supernatural or divine influence (christian or otherwise)", what would it be?
There is no "if you were someone else" or other condition it's simply "you have to choose something somewhere and say god was responsible and you can't say that god was responsible for nothing, so atheist what event do you think the god/supernatural agency that you don't believe in was responsible for?" in otherwords, "atheist, deny your belief and attribute something to the divine"
 

Adventurer2626

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I guess just the existence of everything if I had to choose. I don't believe in anything "outside" the universe or reality. Nothing "super"natural. I think that everything is a part of the same thing and anything that seems unusual or incomprehensible is just missing context or we are applying the wrong rules. The closest I've got is the question of why everything is here. Why it's the way it is and not another way.
 

balladbird

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MagunBFP said:
Compatriot Block said:
I'm sorry OP. Frankly I agree that your question actually would benefit from answers from atheists, but apparently some people can't avoid the urge to be contradictory or irritating.
Why? Thats like saying to a Christian... "If something proved the Christian faith to be false, what do you think it would be?"
Not really. that analogue is emotionally charged, because one can assume that, for a christian, their religion is an important part of who they are, and thus asking them to respond to something that proves a part of themselves false is an act designed to irritate them. If someone is a skeptic or an Atheist and claims to be so for the sake of being reasonable, they shouldn't be so emotionally attached to the non-existence of god that OP's question is ANYTHING like the one you described.

Skeptics and Atheists are always saying that their way of thinking is based on reason, and thus not analogous to religious zeal, that would see them hold fast to beliefs even when logic showed that they were wrong.

Honestly, the responses in this thread are the reason I can't be bothered to associate with organized atheists or the online atheist community. Getting so indignant at being asked a hypothetical question is proof that you're really not so different from the religious people you look down on.

"If, hypothetically, rationality were reversed, and you were in a situation where it was reasonable for even yourself to assume that divine intervention or an otherwise illogical situation were responsible, that is, that there was evidence at hand to support such a theory, what kind of situation would it be?"

this isn't a question it's impossible for any skeptic or atheist to answer, unless they're so emotional about their way of thinking as to make it indistinguishable from religious passion. I advise people who feel this way to do some self reflection. remember that indignation is an emotion, and if you really want to serve the advance of logic and reason, you're better served to do so with as little emotional attachment to facts as possible. After all, the paradigms of rational thought shift frequently.

As to the OP, well, I don't know if I really count as an atheist, or as an agnostic with misotheistic tendencies, but to hell with semantics!

Hitler's career definitely gets a nod from me. How does such a simple, imbecile of a man. A horrid tactician, subpar politician, and pedestrian writer, find all the coincidences and good fortunes necessary to unite vastly more competent people beneath him, enjoy nearly 2 years of unbroken victories, both military and political, and survive hundreds of assassination attempts? if I were to wager on divine intervention, it'd be there.

More optimistically, I've always been inspired by stories that showcase the strength of the human will. Men like Benkei the warrior monk, or Dian Wei of Cao Han, individuals who were so single-mindedly determined to accomplish their goal that they continued to fight even after sustaining wounds that guaranteed they were dead on their feet. I'd like to think that such tales are proof that free will and personality can transcend the bounds of life that contain them... but alas, my disposition doesn't allow me to think such a thing.
 

Resetti's_Replicas

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To answer the OP's question: Smart rational well-educated adults believing in the most anti-scientific thing you could possibly imagine.
 

MagunBFP

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Candlejack000 said:
Joccaren said:
Candlejack000 said:
What makes me believe that there is either some higher power is science itself. That is to say that the law of conservation of energy/mass teaches that mass can not be created or destroyed only changed, but the only explanation that scientists can come up with for how the universe came into existence is that all mass was concentrated in one tiny point in space which than exploded. So in my mind something must have created that matter.
What created the thing that created that matter?
Its just adding a middle man.
The answer Christians would give to this situation is "God created the singularity before the big bang" [Assuming they believe in the big bang].
The question that stems from this is what created god?
At some point there is something that has to have existed without something else to create it. Why this has to be a deity and not simply the universe/singularity-before-the-universe is beyond me.
If someone far smarter than me can explain how the universe just pooped into being I may very well give up on higher powers existing. Until then I chose to believe in a non-interfering deity because to accept that the universe simply came into being messes up a huge part of my understanding of the world. Once the universe can exist from nothing then so could anything. So instead of evolving from apes a group of humans large enough to sustain a population just appeared on the Earth, after all while we may be living and intelligent we are made mass just like the self-creating universe.
So because you don't know better you believe a supernatural entity was responsible for stuff? Before you understood how electricity works did you think magic operated your TV? Or before you understood what makes rain and thunder did you also believe they were the work of the gods? Just because you don't know something doesn't mean a higher power did it, that's just lazy thinking and you should thank your higher power that there are people who don't think like that because its those people that gave us the reasons and knowledge that we have today.

With your example of "pop, stuff just appeared fully formed" you're ignoring the wealth of evidence that demonstrates that didn't happen. Whether you believe that "god" made the universe spontaneously appear or that science did the same thing doesn't change the events that we do know about that happened afterwards.
 

Master_of_Oldskool

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Platypuses. You know someone's fucking with biologists with those things.

Alternatively, the concept of music. A series of particle vibrations manifesting as sound occur near you, and your mood changes instantly. It would be nice to believe that someone gave us that.

I don't, frankly, but hey, there's a pretty damn good feeling to be had in the knowledge that something that beautiful came about by chance, too.

CAPTCHA: bless you

CAPTCHA shows more religious tolerance than most of the forum. Interesting.
 

Remus

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No I will not answer this question by putting myself in the shoes of someone who believes in magic. I find those shoes to be small, uncomfortable, and restrictive to the point that they only allow me to walk in a singular direction rather than explore other directions. How's that for a metaphor?
 

ZippyDSMlee

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My train of thought is that the Abrahamic religions are founded on various pagan religions and that if one delves further all the pagan religions have pieces of the Abrahamic god, be it an emotion or type of being,ect. I'm not one much for doctrine or religion persay as it tends to be a means of subjection and to suck money out of people.

I believe in god but I do not believe in gods wrath he corrected himself with Jesus and no longer sees the need to damn humans. God is still beyond humans and what we see of it is very flawed. But God should be light, love and forgiveness. Something we can not easily do yourself. Satan is not really the anti thesis to God rather than hes just the worst of us amplified a few times.

I believe in spirits and whatnot but at the same time I think science holds all the more reasonable answers for most things.

With that said its hard to come up with something as so many things could be influenced by the divine.
 

Knife

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balladbird said:
Congratulations on ignoring the original question:
"If you were forced to choose some person, place, thing, or event throughout all of human history as "most likely to have been the result of supernatural or divine influence (christian or otherwise)", what would it be?"

And making up your own question:
"If, hypothetically, rationality were reversed, and you were in a situation where it was reasonable for even yourself to assume that divine intervention or an otherwise illogical situation were responsible, that is, that there was evidence at hand to support such a theory, what kind of situation would it be?"

Then assuming everyone retroactively answered your question instead. Therefore they must be irrational, emotional and angry at the mere possibility of god's existance.

Notice the difference between the 2 questions. The first in no way establishes the hypothetical situation where you should stop being an atheist or a skeptic, simply that you are forced pick something. The first question doesn't have any reasonable answer for an atheist or a skeptic. The second question is probably the one he intended to ask but not the one he wrote down.
 

Olas

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Queen Michael said:
kurokotetsu said:
LetalisK said:
BathorysGraveland2 said:
Well, how the fuck can I answer it?! It's all well and good you saying I can't choose nothing, but there is no logical alternative. I do not believe in the divine, I do not believe in spirits or magic, or anything superstitious. So how can I say what is most likely to have happened from those things if I do not believe they exist in any shape or form? How?!
The same way a rail car isn't currently hurtling towards your mother on one track and another towards several fat men on the other but still able to answer that question. Jesus christ dude, it's a hypothetical.

OT: Creation of the universe would be my answer. Seems like something of sufficiently epic proportions for some divine influence to fuck around with.
But in accepting his hypothetical question I feel that I would be renouncing to my skeptical attitude if I thought that any event has a probability that isn't zero with oír any facts it si the same as admiting that there id the possibility that that thing exists, without any proof. At least that si wat I feel. But McMullen said it much better
Or as I like to put it:

Regardless of which event you mention, I as a skeptic feel that there's a 0% chance that the event in question involved anything supernatural or divine. So the question we're basically asked is "Of these events, which all have a 0% chance of being supernatural in any way, which one has the highest chance of involving something supernatural? Which 0% chance is the highest?" and the thing is, if the chance is always 0% then you can't pick a specific one.
Except only an idiot would say there's a completely 0% chance of something being true. Even the most extraordinarily unlikely claim has SOME small likelihood; to say otherwise is just being dismissive for the sake of being dismissive and nothing else.

For example, I may not believe that 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by the US government, but I still consider that more likely than the prospect that it was carried out by unicorns. You see why assigning a value of zero to everything makes no sense?

Vice versa you can't be 100% sure of anything either, for all you know the entire universe as you know it could be an illusion. So everything really has to fall somewhere in the middle.

Of all things I would say either the creation of the universe, or the creation of the first self replicating organic organism. Today with all our advanced technology and extensive knowledge of microorganisms we still can't create anything vaguely self replicating from raw lifeless materials, so the idea that this happened somehow completely on it's own seems incredibly amazing.
 

Canadamus Prime

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Is it me or are some people taking this waaaaaaaaaay too seriously? Sure you could turn this into a big debate about religion and whatever or you could do what I did and have some fun with it.
 

Diddy_Mao

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The day Jerry Falwell died.

Not being all edgy and cool there. I recognize that celebrating the death of a fellow human being is monstrous and I have no sense of pride in my feelings on this matter.

But he was a monstrous man. I've personally known several people who were turned away by their families and loved ones because of Falwell's teachings. The man lived a hateful life and the fact that he died alone and quite likely in pain and terror is literally the only thing in recent memory that has made me feel that there might be a small sense of divine justice to the world.
 

Olas

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Remus said:
No I will not answer this question by putting myself in the shoes of someone who believes in magic. I find those shoes to be small, uncomfortable, and restrictive to the point that they only allow me to walk in a singular direction rather than explore other directions. How's that for a metaphor?
Nobody's asking you to believe in magic, or shoes for that matter. Personally I think shoes are a conspiracy

How about this for a rephrasing of the question: Of all the unexplained things throughout history, what seems like the most compelling evidence that supernatural forces exist?
 

MagunBFP

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balladbird said:
Not really. that analogue is emotionally charged, because one can assume that, for a christian, their religion is an important part of who they are, and thus asking them to respond to something that proves a part of themselves false is an act designed to irritate them. If someone is a skeptic or an Atheist and claims to be so for the sake of being reasonable, they shouldn't be so emotionally attached to the non-existence of god that OP's question is ANYTHING like the one you described.

Skeptics and Atheists are always saying that their way of thinking is based on reason, and thus not analogous to religious zeal, that would see them hold fast to beliefs even when logic showed that they were wrong.
So for someone to be an atheist or to believe in science over mysticism you have to be unemotional about it? You can't get annoyed or emotional when someone is specifically questioning you in an attempt to get you to contradict yourself? Theoretically believing in god should be just as unemotional because unless you're trying to force a belief, just like science, the belief in question just "IS" unquestionably.

Zeal and passion aren't just qualities of the religious believer, they're also not factor that have anything to do with accuracy or truth, they're more of an issue when it comes to accepting things that contradict a belief. Zeal and passion aren't even bad things unless they blind you to actual evidence and fact. Believers of science can be just as passionate when their belief is questioned. You tell an atheist to imagine a world where gravity doesn't exist and they'll more often then not do it as a thought experiment, but if you try to tell them it doesn't and you'll see someone passionately arguing why it does, or they'll just dismiss you as not worth the effort. Their passion doesn't make their belief in science any less adaptable to change.

balladbird said:
Honestly, the responses in this thread are the reason I can't be bothered to associate with organized atheists or the online atheist community.
I'm going to be difficult here... Given your insistence above that atheism is all about calm and rational belief in science, and that it's only religions, not science, that are important parts of who people are why would you feel inclined to associate with other atheists regardless of the replies in this thread? Also you mention that you don't specifically identify as Atheist so I'm kinda getting the feeling that this comment of yours was really just a dig at atheist for being "zealous and emotional"

balladbird said:
Getting so indignant at being asked a hypothetical question is proof that you're really not so different from the religious people you look down on.

"If, hypothetically, rationality were reversed, and you were in a situation where it was reasonable for even yourself to assume that divine intervention or an otherwise illogical situation were responsible, that is, that there was evidence at hand to support such a theory, what kind of situation would it be?"

this isn't a question it's impossible for any skeptic or atheist to answer, unless they're so emotional about their way of thinking as to make it indistinguishable from religious passion. I advise people who feel this way to do some self reflection. remember that indignation is an emotion, and if you really want to serve the advance of logic and reason, you're better served to do so with as little emotional attachment to facts as possible. After all, the paradigms of rational thought shift frequently.
That also wasn't the question the OP asked. You inserting "assuming that gods/the divine/higher powers did exist..." doesn't actually make it part of the original question... that you think it's implicit also has no bearing on the question. It was pretty much "in the universe as it exists now, pick one event/person/thing that god/the divine/higher powers affected". See the difference? One of the main ones being that in a reality where gods/the divine/higher powers do exist and affect events why would they only affect one thing in the whole history of history? The logic of this theoretical reality doesn't ring true.
 

The Ubermensch

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First of, I'm a pagan (and an aus fag), so I don't quite count, but...

George Washington

(Copy pasted/paraphrased from Cracked.com)

-Bullets feared him

He started out as an Ade-de-camp, holding no real rank. Britain was losing, badly and After the commander, Braddock, bought it, Washington took control of the british forces and allowed the to form a rear guard that let them retreat. After the battle upon checking his coat, it had four bullet holes in it.

So, a Civilian takes control of a british force, saves it from devastation, all while matrixing bullets.

During the battle of Princeton in 1777 he arrived and the Americans were getting their arses handed to them, Really bad. Washington Riled up the troops by leading a charge. He told his men to hold fire until he gave the word... at 30 yards.

Let me clarify, he was at the front of the charge, between his men and the british and dodged every bullet.

The battle wasn't won yet, they were still in a bad place. But Washington had the balls to proclaim "The day is our own"

And he totally won

-He was born in the best location

When selecting a commander in chief there were better options. Washington lost a lot of battles before being selected as the leader of the American Republic and there were better military leaders with better track records. His selection really came down to politics

-His greatest victories should not have happened

In 1775 the revolutionary army has the british army in boston surrounded, but they are at a stalemate because the british forces are too entrenched.

Knox wanted to go to Fort Ticonderoga, recently captured from the British, acquire all of the surrendered weaponry kept within, and bring it to Dorchester Heights to hopefully dislodge the British. The fort was 300 miles away, the plan required a ton of men and money, cannons had to be dismantled, flotillas had to be bought or made to ship everything down a river, stuff had to be moved onto sleds and hauled by enough oxen to handle the combined weight of the cannons and the sleds, and everything depended on the weather being a fickle ***** in their favor -- they needed warmth to keep the river unfrozen and snow for covering ground with the sleds, and George Washington was strongly advised against authorizing the mission. Because it was impossible.

nox ventured out and was able to get to the fort in Ticonderoga within four days, and he immediately began the work of disassembling the artillery. By the ninth day, everything was packed up on the flotillas and heading downriver. The men were rowing against freezing winds, and they only just managed to get the cannons across the lake when it started to freeze over. Within a week, Knox was able to obtain around 40 sleds able to carry the 5,400-pound loads, along with the oxen to pull them. Like clockwork, it started snowing, right when the men needed it to. It seemed like another stroke of that sweetly lotioned George Washington luck was in play.

-He had control of the weather

August of 1776, America had declared itself a nation, and the first major battle of the Revolutionary War was underway. George Washington didn't have nearly as many men as the British, and that's before you take into account how many were ill or unprepared. Washington set up shop at a Manhattan harbor and waited for the British there, knowing that the harbor would be important. When the British did arrive, Washington got his ass spanked, as he was wont to do.

And then British Army Commander in Chief William Howe decided to stop attacking Washington's troops, even though they were basically stranded and Howe had a giant ship with lots of firepower. Just fucking because. Because George Washington was 70 percent leprechaun.

Washington, meanwhile, fed spies bad information to make the British believe that he was asking for reinforcements, when really he sent for every ship and boat in the area to enable the entire army to retreat. Obviously all of the boats coming would most likely clue Howe in to some general happenings, but this is George Washington we're talking about, so he saw no flaw in the plan.

Because Washington was destined to win the war and be president, it began to pour rain so hard that Howe wasn't able to see the boats or the men packing up camp. By dawn, most of the troops had sailed off for Manhattan, and to make sure the rest of the troops joined them, Washington let his pupils go all white and flew up into the sky with lightning shooting out his fingertips. What happened is described as a dense, providential fog settling over the land, allowing the rest of the men to evacuate unseen. By the time the fog lifted and Howe saw the men sailing away, it was too late to try and catch them

-He was magic

Washington's crossing of the Delaware and subsequent Christmas conquering of the Hessian enemies is famous by now, but what a lot of people might not know is just how ass-backwardsly Washington stumbled into victory.

Washington's plan, of course, was to sail across the Delaware on December 24 and attack on Christmas. When Washington's men sailed out, a British sympathizer saw the men and sent a servant to deliver a warning message. The note actually got to Colonel Johann Rall, the leader of the Hessian men, who promptly put the note in his pocket instead of reading it and continued playing cards and drinking. We haven't been in a lot of wars, but we're pretty sure that "reading urgent notes regarding the whereabouts of your enemies" is probably one of the first things they teach you to know (assuming you needed to even be taught that). Maybe Rall skipped that day of army training, or maybe the part of his brain that deals with reason is made of poop, or maybe George Washington is just cosmically, unfairly, inexplicably lucky. Whatever the reason, Rall never read the note.



I'm sorry, but George Washington was clearly the chosen one. He had a monotheistic god or a powerful Syliph or something watching over him.

I don't know what the fuck happened America, but you used to be this cool.
 

MagunBFP

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OlasDAlmighty said:
Queen Michael said:
Or as I like to put it:

Regardless of which event you mention, I as a skeptic feel that there's a 0% chance that the event in question involved anything supernatural or divine. So the question we're basically asked is "Of these events, which all have a 0% chance of being supernatural in any way, which one has the highest chance of involving something supernatural? Which 0% chance is the highest?" and the thing is, if the chance is always 0% then you can't pick a specific one.
Except only an idiot would say there's a completely 0% chance of something being true. Even the most extraordinarily unlikely claim has SOME small likelihood; to say otherwise is just being dismissive for the sake of being dismissive and nothing else.

For example, I may not believe that 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by the US government, but I still consider that more likely than the prospect that it was carried out by unicorns. You see why assigning a value of zero to everything makes no sense?

Vice versa you can't be 100% sure of anything either, for all you know the entire universe as you know it could be an illusion. So everything really has to fall somewhere in the middle.
I'm only seeing 1 number and no decimal points, so it's more likely that 0% is actually rounding some pretty damn small numbers to the closest whole number, which is the generally accepted convention. Likewise saying that you are 99.9999999999% sure of something can be rounded up to 100% as while you've made allowences for the fact that there is a possibility, slim as it may be, that you aren't right, you're close enough to certain that 100% demonstrates your point.

Based on your example though, given there is literally no evidence supporting the existence of Unicorns, and we know that everyone who boarded the planes involved in the 9/11 tragedy were seen while they were boarding and during the flight but there was not a single report of "omfg there's a fucking unicorn on this plane" it's not unreasonably to assume there was an absolute 0% chance that unicorns were involved. Call me an idiot if you like but there are just somethings that absolutely can not happen.

Also given that the universe is the only reality that you are aware of, and that it's impossible to actually observe "beyond" the possible illusion of it, you can safely say that something is 100% accurate or likely in this universe. Unless you accept the existence of God, in which cause it's always possible he'll fuck with your probabilities I hear he does that for shits and giggles
 

K12

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The main problem with this question is that the concept of "likelihood" is completely rewritten when you accept that there are/ can be supernatural causes.

If you assume that there are some supernatural causes then everything can be equally likely to be caused by them until we have some understanding of how they work.

I am allowed to say "nothing" and refuse to answer the question on your terms until I understand your terms better.