Rickswordfish Posted April 24, 2019 Share Posted April 24, 2019 I was wondering how common coincidences are in the world Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted April 25, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted April 25, 2019 It seems they are more common than people realize or believe they should be. https://www.bustle.com/p/the-science-of-coincidences-shows-they-have-more-to-do-with-math-than-magic-57222 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdelsolray Posted April 25, 2019 Share Posted April 25, 2019 2 hours ago, Rickswordfish said: I was wondering how common coincidences are in the world I don't know and I suspect no one else does either. It would certainly be difficult to quantify, measure, poll or analyze without significant rigor in the analytical methodology. For example, one person's coincidence may be another person's correlation, or another person may claim actual causation. I have spent some time attempting to learn to distinguish the differences among and between non sequitur, coincidence, correlation and causation. I've noticed that many folks tend to elevate the two events at issue to a level above what they actually are, and that tendency to elevate is correlated with (perhaps caused by) the person's infection with confirmation, expectation or other biases. Conversely, other folks tend to do the opposite. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
older Posted April 25, 2019 Share Posted April 25, 2019 An excellent analysis, Sdelsolray. My honey is the kind of person for whom correlation is causation. If A precedes B, then A had to have caused B. It can be frustrating at times. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickswordfish Posted April 25, 2019 Author Share Posted April 25, 2019 The reason I ask is i've read about the whore of babylon in revelations and I noticed it has a number of things in common with the vatican and the catholic church (it has even more in common with ancient pagan rome) my question is what are the odds that the vatican and the catholic church has these things in common with the whore of babylon and its just all coincidence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lerk Posted April 25, 2019 Share Posted April 25, 2019 2 hours ago, Rickswordfish said: The reason I ask is i've read about the whore of babylon in revelations and I noticed it has a number of things in common with the vatican and the catholic church (it has even more in common with ancient pagan rome) my question is what are the odds that the vatican and the catholic church has these things in common with the whore of babylon and its just all coincidence I think you've actually hit on it -- you've listed two things that have stuff in common with the passage. How many more things could you find? Maybe a lot! And are the things in common really things in common, or are they kind of a stretch? I remember in church when they read the passage 1 Tim 4:3 about someone coming later forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from meats, and everyone said "hey, that's just like the Catholics not eating meat on Friday and forbidding the priests from marrying!". But most scholars think it's talking about the Gnostics, and it's likely they were already doing some of those things by the time this letter was written. (Most do not think Paul wrote this, and that it was late 1st / early 2nd century.) The author of Revelation was writing about things he thought would happen soon, based on things that were happening at the time. Describing this "whore of Babylon" and giving it attributes of the Roman empire makes sense. That part would have been "current events," not prophecy. My 2c. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickswordfish Posted April 25, 2019 Author Share Posted April 25, 2019 List of what the whore of babylon "Idolatrous practices" A city Rich Scarlet and purple Killed people Head of a worldwide organization 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickswordfish Posted April 25, 2019 Author Share Posted April 25, 2019 List of what the whore of babylon has in common with the vatican and the catholic church "Idolatrous practices" A city Rich Scarlet and purple Killed people Head of a worldwide organization Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MOHO Posted April 25, 2019 Share Posted April 25, 2019 16 minutes ago, Rickswordfish said: List of what the whore of babylon has in common with the vatican and the catholic church "Idolatrous practices" A city Rich Scarlet and purple Killed people Head of a worldwide organization What the hell was worldwide in antiquity? Europe? Anyway is that why the fundy crowd is has their knickers all in a wahd over this "new world order" speak? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickswordfish Posted April 25, 2019 Author Share Posted April 25, 2019 The catholic religion has churches literally around the world Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickswordfish Posted April 25, 2019 Author Share Posted April 25, 2019 Anyway i'm not saying the catholic church is the whore of babylon i'm just wondering what are the odds that the vatican would have this many things in common with the whore of babylon by coincidence Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted April 25, 2019 Share Posted April 25, 2019 47 minutes ago, Rickswordfish said: Anyway i'm not saying the catholic church is the whore of babylon i'm just wondering what are the odds that the vatican would have this many things in common with the whore of babylon by coincidence If you dug up more correlations somewhere would you start thinking the bible was true? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickswordfish Posted April 25, 2019 Author Share Posted April 25, 2019 3 minutes ago, midniterider said: If you dug up more correlations somewhere would you start thinking the bible was true? Maybe, why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator LogicalFallacy Posted April 25, 2019 Moderator Share Posted April 25, 2019 4 hours ago, Rickswordfish said: The reason I ask is i've read about the whore of babylon in revelations and I noticed it has a number of things in common with the vatican and the catholic church (it has even more in common with ancient pagan rome) my question is what are the odds that the vatican and the catholic church has these things in common with the whore of babylon and its just all coincidence Scholars think that revelations pertain to the time and place that it was written. It's not a far off futuristic book, though many Christians see it that way. I've just been listening to Bart Erhman talk about the early conversations going on in Christianity and the different interpretations they would come up with for the same verse. Basically you can read anything you'd like into those verses. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickswordfish Posted April 25, 2019 Author Share Posted April 25, 2019 5 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said: Scholars think that revelations pertain to the time and place that it was written. It's not a far off futuristic book, though many Christians see it that way. I've just been listening to Bart Erhman talk about the early conversations going on in Christianity and the different interpretations they would come up with for the same verse. Basically you can read anything you'd like into those verses. I think there's a very good chance youre right but it just seems odd to me that the vatican/catholic church would have that many things in common with the whore of babylon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConsiderTheSource Posted April 25, 2019 Share Posted April 25, 2019 Somehow this conversation skipped the part where the stories in Revelations had evidence of having any reason to possess predictive ability. As in, proof of "power source" abie to make accurate future predictions, such as our scientific based weather forecasting models. Until such time any observations that appear to match is effectively random and coincidental. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disillusioned Posted April 25, 2019 Share Posted April 25, 2019 It's possible to draw parallels between any number of works of fiction and certain aspects of our modern world. I wouldn't exactly call such things "coincidences". There are lots of plausible reasons why the written word might resemble things we see in the real world. Doesn't mean there's any special power there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickswordfish Posted April 25, 2019 Author Share Posted April 25, 2019 58 minutes ago, ConsiderTheSource said: Somehow this conversation skipped the part where the stories in Revelations had evidence of having any reason to possess predictive ability. As in, proof of "power source" abie to make accurate future predictions, such as our scientific based weather forecasting models. Until such time any observations that appear to match is effectively random and coincidental. The vatican/catholic church has at least 6 things in common with the whore of babylon 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdelsolray Posted April 25, 2019 Share Posted April 25, 2019 6 hours ago, Rickswordfish said: The reason I ask is i've read about the whore of babylon in revelations and I noticed it has a number of things in common with the vatican and the catholic church (it has even more in common with ancient pagan rome) my question is what are the odds that the vatican and the catholic church has these things in common with the whore of babylon and its just all coincidence How many "things in common" exist between ancient Rome (say from 100 BCE through 400 CE) and the Orthodox/Catholic Church (say from 100 CE through 500 CE)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickswordfish Posted April 25, 2019 Author Share Posted April 25, 2019 2 minutes ago, sdelsolray said: How many "things in common" exist between ancient Rome (say from 100 BCE through 400 CE) and the Orthodox/Catholic Church (say from 100 CE through 500 CE)? Don't know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdelsolray Posted April 25, 2019 Share Posted April 25, 2019 35 minutes ago, Rickswordfish said: Don't know Well, I suggest you investigate this because I think you skipped an important step. In an earlier post you wrote (emphasis added): Quote The reason I ask is i've read about the whore of babylon in revelations and I noticed it has a number of things in common with the vatican and the catholic church (it has even more in common with ancient pagan rome).... Following that, in another post, you wrote: Quote "List of what the whore of babylon has in common with the vatican and the catholic church "Idolatrous practices" A city Rich Scarlet and purple Killed people Head of a worldwide organization" I asked you, "How many "things in common" exist between ancient Rome (say from 100 BCE through 400 CE) and the Orthodox/Catholic Church (say from 100 CE through 500 CE)?" It seems to me that most, if not all of your list of six similarities already were part of Roman civilization. Perhaps the Orthodox/Catholic Church, having been declared the official religion of Rome, simply adopted and/or developed the same descriptors from the Romans. Any similarities between the whore of babylon literature and the Vatican may be simply explained by the original Roman influence on that religion. A parsimonious explanation would be the whore of babylon literature simply referred to Rome as it existed when the literature was first written. Bonus question: How many similarities between the whore of babylon literature and Rome are not found as similarities between the whore of babylon literature and the Vatican? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickswordfish Posted April 25, 2019 Author Share Posted April 25, 2019 2 minutes ago, sdelsolray said: Well, I suggest you investigate this because I think you skipped an important step. In an earlier post you wrote (emphasis added): Following that, in another post, you wrote: I asked you, "How many "things in common" exist between ancient Rome (say from 100 BCE through 400 CE) and the Orthodox/Catholic Church (say from 100 CE through 500 CE)?" It seems to me that most, if not all of your list of six similarities already were part of Roman civilization. Perhaps the Orthodox/Catholic Church, having been declared the official religion of Rome, simply adopted and became the same descriptors. Any similarities between the whore of babylon literature and the Vatican may be simply explained by the original Roman influence on that religion. A parsimonious explanation would be the whore of babylon literature simply referred to Rome as it existed when the literature was first written. I never thought of that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted April 26, 2019 Share Posted April 26, 2019 6 hours ago, Rickswordfish said: List of what the whore of babylon has in common with the vatican and the catholic church "Idolatrous practices" A city Rich Scarlet and purple Killed people Head of a worldwide organization Why do you put Idolatrous practices in quotes? Either they commit them or they don't. Also, The Vatican is now a country. It's within the city of Rome. I just visited it earlier this month. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdelsolray Posted April 26, 2019 Share Posted April 26, 2019 3 hours ago, Rickswordfish said: I never thought of that Education never ends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted April 26, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted April 26, 2019 This line of inquiry looks like previous examples I've seen here when someone declaring to be a non-believer is searching for things to prove himself wrong. That aside, and returning to the actual stated question of the thread.......... When only 23 people are gathered there is a greater than 50% chance that two of them will share the same birthday. I imagine that fact is rather mind boggling if you believe that coincidence is very rare. https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-22978,00.html 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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