Post by Radrook Admin on Jun 16, 2019 15:07:35 GMT -5
When things stop becoming coincidences:
First, please note that coincidences happen and their is no logical reason to assume than any and all coincidences are somehow part of some malicious scheme. To go around suspecting that one is a victim of scheming is classified as paranoia. However, not all suspicions are unjustified. There are justifiable grounds for events that repeat themselves to be viewed with a very critical eye. In fact, that is the foundation of inductive reasoning which reaches a conclusion after a repetition of events. Example: Joe visits you ten times in a row and each time you find that their is money missing from your piggy bank. Conclusion? Joe robbed you. Or each time you eat a certain food you become ill. Conclusion? You are allergic to that food. Such a conclusion is called the inductive leap and it is justified because of the unlikelihood of the event not being somehow associated with Joe. At first, of course, you probably ignored it as a coincidence. Where to draw the line
But Where exactly do events that happen repeatedly cease to qualify as coincidences? Exactly where do we draw the line? That's whee improbability comes in and suspicion becomes justifiable. In short, we don't expect highly-improbable events to blatantly repeat themselves. For example, we don't expect someone to win the Lottery twice in a row. If it does happen more than we become suspicious that something is afoot. If it happens three times we will assume without a doubt that cheating-is involved.
Odds of winning the Lottery
www.thebalance.com/what-are-the-odds-of-winning-the-lottery-3306232
www.thebalance.com/what-are-the-odds-of-winning-the-lottery-3306232
In Nature
But how about the repetition of some extremely improbable event in nature? How exactly are we supposed to react to those? Non- religious people will look for ways to explain it away as some quaint natural anomaly and nothing more. However, religious people will tend to conclude that some godlike entity is involved or that someone has cast a jinxing spell on the victim.
For example, how likely is it that you get struck by lightning each time you attempt to go camping? That the lightning seems to emerge from a cloudless sky on a sunny day and that it always strikes you on your right elbow at exactly 12 o'clock noon? Or how likely is it that a tornado would miss all the houses in your crowded neighborhood except yours five years in a row?
In such cases, a religious person will suspect supernatural interference in his life and anyone insisting that it is all absolutely normal and should be accepted as such would be suspected of very likely being involved.