Suppose you start flipping a coin and keeping track of the results. What are the odds against getting heads 100 times in a row? Normally pretty high, right? But with a simple technique, the odds go way down. In fact, if you apply this trick consistently, you can virtually guarantee success every time. Know how? It’s easy: every time it comes up tails, you just say, “That one doesn’t count.” By only counting the ones that come up heads, you can get as many in a row as you like.
Rigged score-keeping is a big part of Christian apologetics. You want proof that God answers prayer? Here, let me show you my scars: I was in a terrible accident and the doctors said I had only a 4% chance of survival, but my family prayed for me and here I am today. Well, that’s all well and good for you and the other three people who survive similar injuries, but what about the 96 that didn’t survive, despite their families’ prayers? Those don’t count. You only count the ones that come up heads.
Rigged score-keeping is a major part of Christian interpretation of prophecy. Take a closer look at any so-called “fulfilled” prophecy, and you’ll find rigged score-keeping. For example, Isaiah 7:14 says, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Christians claim this is a prediction of the (alleged) virgin birth of Jesus. But Mary didn’t call her son’s name “Immanuel,” she called him “Jesus.” Fail? Not according to believers. The only part that really counts is the part that seems to fit the fulfillment; any prophetic failure is automatically disqualified. You only count the heads.
Rigged score-keeping is usually accompanied by some form of rationalization. For example, believers will use the excuse that the Bible did not fail, we just misinterpreted it. Thus, when the Bible says “she shall call his NAME Immanuel,” ho ho, silly skeptic, that does not mean the Bible is predicting the actual NAME she would give him. Immanuel (our trusty footnotes tell us) is a name that means “God with us,” so when the text predicted that she would call his name Immanuel, what it really meant was that Jesus is God incarnate.
Rationalization is even more useful in dealing with God’s “answers” to prayer. If things happen to turn out the way you wanted, then that’s “heads,” so you count it. But if not, then it doesn’t count, because you were asking with evil motives, or without enough faith. Or else it’s just that God works in mysterious ways, and He refused our requests because in His infinite wisdom He must have had something infinitely better in mind for us. It may look like that one came up tails, but it doesn’t matter because that one does not count.
Rigged score-keeping can also be used to invent miracles out of everyday events. If you’re driving home, and somebody cuts you off and you almost get into an accident, that counts as God protecting you. If you’re not quite so fortunate, and you do get in an accident, it still counts as God protecting you, because you didn’t get hurt—the damage to your car doesn’t count as failed protection, because you’re more important than your car is. If you’re even less fortunate, and do suffer significant injuries, it still counts as God protecting you, because it could have been worse, and you could have died. And if, in fact, you DO die, it doesn’t count as a failure to protect you, it counts as (a) God calling you home to the eternal blessings of heaven and (b) God’s great consolation and comfort towards the believers among your grieving family and friends (since they could have been a lot more sad, you see). No matter what the outcome, God scores the point.
Rigged score-keeping accounts for most of the common, everyday “evidence” that ordinary believers will cite as proof that God is real. But it works just as well as proof that angels are real, or proof that fairies are real, or proof that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real. The trick is in how you count up the score; the magical being itself does not even need to exist.
Was it George Carlin who said he always prayed to Joe Pesci? Anyway he said the results were as good as praying to doG – maybe even better!
All swans are white if you don’t count the black ones.
Excellent. I am going to save this article.
I use the same analogy–100 flipping coins–to explain evolution. Except it is a flawed analogy (mine) because there is no “goal”, although you could say that the “100 heads in a row” could represent the environment.
In any case, if you flip coins to get all heads using natural selection, you do WOULD toss out all the tails as failures (or deaths that didn’t reproduce), and in around 150 flips or so, you’d have 100 heads in a row.
But the chances of flipping 100 times and getting 100 heads at once is mind bogglingly large. Do the math–I guarantee the number is larger than you expected (why is it that humans are so dumb when it comes to probabilities?).
It’s enough to make natural selection look like magic to our puny human brains, lol.
But it is interesting that the survival of RELIGIONS work in similar ways–doing everything they can to toss out, fight, or undermine elements that threaten their survival. Reason and evidence, though, is the king of this jungle.
Count the hits, ignore the misses.
Makes for an impressive batting average.
Apologists use the same flawed approach when trying to explain away biblical contradictions too. They will sometimes say that the contradictions are in the “insignificant” verses or statements in the Bible. They seem to misunderstand what it means to say that a text is “inerrant.” When someone is saying that the Bible is inerrant, they are not saying that there are indeed errors and contradictions, but that they are just in the insignificant parts and it is only the significant parts that are error-free. They are saying that the WHOLE BOOK is without error, from beginning to end, all the way through.
This apologetic amounts to nothing more than “pay attention only to the hits, and ignore the misses” which is just a blatant attempt at diverting our attention, not really answering the questions or explaining reasonably. Unfortunately, the people behind it seem entirely oblivious to what it is they are doing, in using that tactic.
Brian
Brian
Reminds me of that woman that got acid in her face a while back… she was so thankful that doG had made her buy new sunglasses that saved her eyes. Acid in face, horrible scars, but god saved her eyes! Miracle! Guess he was too busy just to make the guy carrying the acid miss his throw of the acid instead.
Yeas, I remember that story. But it wasn’t a “guy” attacking her with acid – the entire incident was a hoax by the woman to get attention. Knowing this skews the probability of her getting sunglasses just before the attack.
Another story of the event: Police: Washington state woman made up acid attack story
Hmm, never caught that. Funny, thanking god that you didn’t blind yourselft… very sad that this woman was so mentally ill.
When a survivor of an accident that has killed many of the others involved thanks God for saving his/her life, they are not only guilty of rigged self-centered thinking, they are also cruel to the loved ones of the non-survivors. God obviously did not care to save them!
Living in a delusional fantasy world is indeed a great mental feat. It is the same level that we ascribe to people who die from stunts where they counted the rewards but none of the risks, in other words, stupid.
Another point about tossing 100 coins: the probablity of getting 100 heads is indeed 1 in 2^100 – but whatever specific head/tail permutation you get will be equally unlikely.
It’s especially irksome when someone citing a trivial “miracle” or answered prayer blithely ignores the unending horrors of disease and death that god doesn’t miracle away. Yes, children are dying but that’s ok, god answered their prayer for a drain clog to dissolve (with the aid of Drano, of course)!
And if you get nothing but tails? Miracle!
Another clever deck-stacking method done in all cold readings is to make an incredibly common guess. An equally accurate translation of Isaiah 7:14 (from the New Revised Standard Version) is: Look, the *young woman* is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
Not a lot of old women, or men for that matter, having babies.