Probability and God

Working hard as usual, I could not help following a long conversation on the contradictions of religion that took place in a neighboring office.

Basically all the contradictions of religion arise from the supposed relationship between human beings and God. God is thought to be omnipotent, omniscient, merciful and benevolent. However, inspite of His mercy and benevolence He does maintain a fiery Hell in which He occasionally throws a wayward soul to be poked by demons. The purpose of the Hell and the publicity surrounding its existence is to ensure that we "do the right thing".

That leads to the problem at hand here - since God wants to teach us to do the right thing, then that implies we have a choice.

What is a choice? There are two kinds of choices, the fake kind and the real thing. Imagine a couple, Alice and John, sitting around a table staring at a coin. They decide that he will buy her new shoes if she correctly calls the result of the coin toss. If she doesn't they will try something more creative tonight.

Now, from Alice and John's point of view, the outcome, heads or tails, is a random event. But if only they had exact information on the force Alice applies to the coin, the exact point of application of the force and the weight and other dimensions of the coin, they could in principle calculate the outcome precisely.

The point here is that the outcome of the coin toss is in principle predictable, though in fact neither John nor Alice have enough information, or maybe even the capability to do so. Therefore it is not really a random event, though it might appear to be so in the vast majority of situations.

There is something not quite right about couples deciding the nitty-gritty of their lives on the basis of coin tosses. However, I think they would be reasonable enough to agree that the coin toss is in fact predictable.

Religion is not so reasonable. Its proponents would like us to accept that we have free choice to decide between right and wrong and yet God is omniscient, that is, capable of predicting exactly what we would decide. It is as if we know exactly where the coin will land, but still insist on calling it random!

The religious coin is predictable and unpredictable at the same time.

Another issue. Platitudes circulate in the world about how there is "no conflict" between science and religion. It is said the two things can co-exist peacefully like ham and eggs because they "deal with different issues". Such ideas are generally advanced by scientists or liberals to calm down the mullahs.

Unfortunately this is so much bullshit and the mullah-brigade knows it.

Physics and the concept of God (as expounded by most religions) is directly in conflict. One body of thought is logical while the other contradictory. How can they co-exist? Only if we just sweep the contradictions under the rug.

This brings me to real choice, i.e. real probability. If the toss of a coin is not really random, then what is? Is there anything truly random in this universe? As it turns out, there is:

The outcomes of quantum experiments are truly random.

Let me describe a quantum experiment with electrons (which make up electricity) that strangely enough spend their entire existence spinning like tops. The spin is either clockwise or counter-clockwise, which we will call "up" and "down" respectively. In other words, whenever we observe the spin of an electron we will find it to be either "up" or "down". Now, as it turns out, quantum physics makes it possible to prepare an electron in a state that is both "up" and "down" before the direction of its spin is actually observed. Once observed, such an electron turns out to be "up" 50% of the time and "down" 50% of the time.

So far this seems just like a coin toss with heads or tails replaced by "up" or "down". But the difference is that there is no way even in principle to predict whether the electron will turn out to be "up" or "down"!

One might say that maybe we cannot predict this, but somebody much smarter than us could figure out a way. Somebody like God perhaps? That is where the stronger assertion comes in. It is possible to test whether any other way of predicting the outcomes could even exist. Such tests have been carried out and the answer is negative. There can be no way of predicting these outcomes, even a way that we are just too stupid to figure out! If there was a way, any way, the outcome of the tests would have been materially different.

How exactly these tests are devised is technical and comes under the topic of Bell's Inequalities. Brave readers may click on it and figure it out :-)

So where does that leave us with the omniscience of God? If He is truly omniscient, He must have a way to figure out whether the electron will turn out to be "up" or "down". But if there was a way, then the above tests could not have turned out the way they did.

Essentially quantum physics rules out the existence of an omniscient entity by proving that there exist truly random events in the universe. If that ain't a conflict with the concept of God, then what is?

Maybe this is why physicists drink a lot.