LHC Forces Bookmaker To Lower Odds On the Existence of God

A UK bookmaker has lowered the odds on proving that god exists to just 4-1 to coincide with the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider. The chance that physicists might discover the elusive sub-atomic object called the "God particle" has forced the odds lower. Initially the odds that proof would be found of God's existence were 20-1, and they lengthened to 33-1 when the multi-billion pound atom smasher was shut down temporarily because of a magnetic failure. A spokesman for Paddy Power said, "The atheists' planned advertising campaign seems to have renewed the debate in pubs and around office water-coolers as to whether there is a God and we've seen some of that being transferred into bets. However we advise anyone still not sure of God's existence to maybe hedge their bets for now, just in case." He added that confirmation of God's existence would have to be verified by scientists and given by an independent authority before any payouts were made. Everyone getting a payout is encouraged to tithe at least ten percent.

Comments

Hahaha

[trackstr777]

Scientists being required as part of the proof to earn the payout that God exists? Damn, bookies sure do know how to make it a safe bet.

Re:Hahaha

[c6gunner]

Science can't prove that god exists, or that it doesn't exist. So it's a perfectly safe bet- it can never be won.

Uh ... what?

They certainly CAN prove that God exists ... if he really does. It would be a rather simple matter. A big bearded guy in a white robe would come strolling into the main research lab of the LHC, wave his hand in the air, and atomize 99% of the scientists in the room. The remaining 1% would then say "Eureka! We have evidence of God's existence!", and then the Paddy Power people would expediently relocate to Mexico as armed mobs stormed their offices.

It's the other bit of your proposition that's rather difficult to handle. Disproving the existence of God is still possible, in theory. Unfortunately, in practice, you can never totally disprove an irrational belief because those who hold it can always change the details in order to get around the evidence. That's why, over time, we've gone from a Pantheon of Gods who controlled pretty much every event in our lives, to a single God who seems to never do much of anything. Over the last few millenia we've chipped away at God's domain until almost nothing remains, and yet at every step of the way the "faithful" of the world have simply modified their definition of God, and then carried on inanely insisting that their current definition is 100% true.

So no, we can't "prove" that God doesn't exist for the same reason that you'll never convince some people that Homeopathy is garbage, or that Psychics are a bunch of jackals and scam-artists. However, for all practical purposes, we've been disproving his/her/their existence for centuries. You just have to be open-minded enough to actually look at the evidence.

Re:Hahaha

[Artifakt]

Most people when they talk about God have it all wrapped up with other issues, like the survival of consciousness after death, eternal reward or punishment, omnescience and omnipotence, and many others. They even have very specific definitions of those concepts in mind. For example, if they don't like the concept of God, they often assume that God, if 'He" exists, must know everything, even where knowing certain things simultaneously supposedly creates a paradox. They then point to that paradox as proof God doesn't exist. It becomes a definition problem - Is it still fair to call something God if it only knows as much as can be known, and there are things which simply can't be known? Should we refuse to call something God if it can't make a four sided triangle?
      Ideas such as the soul, supernatural phenomena, gods, life after death, heaven, enlightenment, miracles, worship, omnipotence and so on, aren't monolithic. It's logically quite possible that one or more of these things could exist without the others existing at all. Whether you would want to define a being that was morally perfect, but didn't have unlimited power, as God, is a philosophical choice. (as is the reverse, a being that is morally flawed but has unlimited power). Linking all sorts of concepts together, and not defining some of those concepts, lets people engage in circular reasoning. That doesn't mean nobody has ever done better - plenty of people, both in various religions and in the great philosophies, have gone to great efforts to define terms, and avoid at least the most obvious errors.
      Unfortunately 90% or more of the discussions on places such as Slashdot will be between people who haven't ever read anything by the people who have done better, and who think their latest point has never been proposed by anyone else before.

A particle?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Surely God would be something a bit bigger than a particle.

I'm confused.

[CyberBill]

This article is jibberish. The 'God Particle', aka the Higgs Boson has nothing to do with whether God or Gods exist. Is this 'bet' that people are placing a bet on the Higgs Boson, or are they actually betting on whether a God exists?? I am very confused, but probably less confused than the person who wrote the article!!

Re:I'm confused.

[Koiu Lpoi]

In short, people are betting that the finding of the Higgs Boson will prove the existence of God. In other words, Paddy Power will shell out a lot of money if somebody can prove god to them, and their odds moved to 1/4 because the Higgs Boson is called the "God Particle". While it's good to know that the public has no idea what this really means, this is so incredibly inane it doesn't even deserve to be on Idle.

Re:Don't believe, just ask

[c6gunner]

Blind faith is the antithesis of being a nerd.

Nonsense. Most of the members here have never seen any evidence of real, live females, yet they believe in them through faith alone. You know what they say - everyone needs something to believe in :)

Re:Proving God sucks

[mh1997]

Would that prove the existence of God ? Well no. There are problems :

it's not repeateable (it's the end of the world, you just ain't going to do it twice)

it doesn't "prove" omnipotence, just proves this guy is very, very, very powerfull

it doesn't "prove" omnipresence, after all how would you know if he missed a terrorist somewhere that realizes that after what happened to his fellow muslims, he'd best stay quiet

Actually the problem with proving God exists or does not exist with science is that you need to compare something created by God to something not created by God, examine the difference, and the difference will be God.

If God exists, all things are created by God, and there is no difference between the two objects. If God does not exist, neither object was created by God and there is no difference between the two objects.

Either way, you have no observable difference between the two objects.

Re:Proving God sucks

[hoogamaphone]

Interesting post, and you bring up some really good discussion points.

"One with omnipresence would be easy to prove. What would be accepted as proof of God ? There are more than enough structures in space that are omnipresent ... The gravity field of, well, anything, is by definition omnipresent (even though it's not so at every last moment in time, it's just everywhere any human will ever go, or even any photon that will ever touch a human). The laws of nature are omnipresent and eternal. Force carrying particle fields are omnipresent and eternal, ... If you only need a "mechanical" God, the bet is won already."

One needs to be very careful when saying "prove" or any conjugation of the word. Unfortunately the main problem - one that many people, even scientists, ignore - is called the problem of induction (you can learn about it in any Philosophy 101 class), which says that one cannot prove something based on prior experiences (i.e. it's possible that you're prior experiences can lead you to the wrong conclusion). If you forget about the problem of induction, you may be a turkey (Every day, the turkey gets fed by the farmer, and grows to believe that the farmer is a good guy and is looking out for the turkey's best interest. Then one day, right around Thanksgiving ...). Science is based on faith that the laws of nature are omnipresent and universal (they might be), because if they aren't then science fails. It is possible that the laws of nature change on a nonlinear/discontinuous function that appears to be constant on the limited timescale of human existence, but changes dramatically -or even slightly - sometime in the future. It is also possible that if there is an omnipotent god, that He(she/it) might decide to change the laws of nature just to fuck with us.

There is a lot more I could say about the problem of induction, but entire books have been written on the subject, and I'm spent. So on to a new topic.

On Buddhism you say:

"you can check buddhism : since the world only exists as part of the mind of people, it is not possible for people to cause accidents due to "not knowing" something, since they know about the entire world. So dig a hold in the sidewalk, camouflage it, and if someone falls into it you're sure buddhism is wrong."

You are confusing buddhism with solipsism: the view that the existence of anything external to your own mind is questionable, at best. So, yes you can easily prove solipsism wrong.

Buddhists don't really believe in a god; in fact, there are many Buddhists who are practicing members of other religions as well. The four main beliefs of Buddhism are the following (from Wikipedia):

1. Life as we know it ultimately is or leads to suffering in one way or another.
2. Suffering is caused by craving or attachments to worldly pleasures of all kinds. This is often expressed as a deluded clinging to a certain sense of existence, to selfhood, or to the things or people that we consider the cause of happiness or unhappiness.
3. Suffering ends when craving ends, when one is freed from desire. This is achieved by eliminating all delusion, thereby reaching a liberated state of Enlightenment.
4. Reaching this liberated state is achieved by following the path laid out by the Buddha.