What do atheists think about chance, luck, and coincidence?

Question

I am a Christian so I believe that these types of things happen for a reason and that is God, but I'm just curious to know how atheists rationalize situations that occur by chance, luck, or coincidence.

And I ask this because it seems that most atheists are atheists because they rely on proof and evidence for everything... so how do situations of chance, luck, or coincidence happen?

Answer 1

There are very real answers out there if you're willing to look for them and suffer to learn them. Suffering teaches, as hard as that may sound.

When you believe in heaven, miracles, God's Will and Satan's temptations, you're skipping out on having to suffer for learning's sake. They are all excuses and easy answers to questions that deserve far better explanations.

Answer 2

First off, I’m a Christian but I’d like to respond.

A coincidence is when I meet you at the same time and place and we did not plan it that way.

A coincidence is NOT predicting thousands of events thousands of years into the future and making them all come true.

It would take millions upon millions of coincidences stacked end to end to bring us from a state of non-existence to the present day. This is know as mathematical absurdity, not a coincidence.

I don’t believe in coincidences that pile up to absurdity.

Is it a coincidence that TWO direct descendants of Abraham went on to found the worlds two largest religions which are diametrically opposed and prophesied to fight it out in the end?

Is it a coincidence that exactly 28 generations from Christ (see Matt 1:17) Israel is back in the land, surrounded by they’re “brethren” who are confederate against them (psalm 83) and possessing the technology to facilitate Armageddon?

Is it a coincidence that the world is pushing towards a one world government?

Is it a coincidence that the Earth is exactly the correct distance from just the right source of energy with just the right orbit and titled at just the right angle?

Is it also a coincidence that within the vacuum of space that gas seems to collapse and form stars even though gas does not behave this way in a vacuum?

Energy can not be created or destroyed, so where did this universe full of energy come from? Within a universe that has matter and energy winding down, what wound them up?

Sorry, I have more questions than answers.

Answer 3

Gosh, as the guy above says, it's random. If you derive pleasure, or comfort, from believing your trivial ups-and-downs are looked after by an invisible god in the sky, who has to tend to, if one believes such things, a trillion galaxies in each of which there are a trillion stars, well, dear heart, let your ego go for it. No real harm done, I suppose. By the way, 'chance' and 'luck' mean pretty much the same, and coincidence is, as another chap here said, merely, er, coincidence. Things happen. Things will happen to you in your life, some good, some bad, some great, some not so hot. Hey, it's been going on ever since our species still hid in caves and, at long last, discovered fire.

Answer 4

I believe that everything is coincidence. However, it is ALL affected by our actions.

When you think about it: If you were leaving the house this morning, and accidentally dropped your car keys, you have to stop and pick them up. This may take only a millisecond, but it COULD mean that you arrive at an intersection just a moment later than you would have, had you not dropped your keys. This precise difference in time may mean the difference between a safe trip, and an accident.

Therefore, things that may seem bad--not being able to find your purse, forgetting something and going back, all contribute to what actually happens. What starts out good or bad, may make something less good/bad.

An example of this in my own life, a few years ago: My sister received a new car, from my parents, for her birthday. She and I went for a drive to show someone, though that person wasn't home. We arrived home just seconds before an intoxicated driver drove down our street. Though we were unhappy that her friend wasn't home to see the car, we were saved from an accident because we entered the driveway just in time.

So in my opinion, everything is coincidence, and everything affects everything.

Answer 5

If everyone took a couple of basic courses in probability and stats, we'd have less superstition in this world...

Imagine this scenario:

You buy a ticket for the state lottery. You pick your 6 favorite numbers. You go to church and pray to God every day. Your odds of winning are like 1 in 14 million.

You win. What an amazing coincidence!!!

But here's the thing. There's nothing extraordinary about it. It had to happen to someone. And no matter who wins, that particular person will likely think him/herself incredibly favoured by luck or God or their lucky star - and yet it had to happen to someone. Thousands of other people pray to God and never win the lottery.

It is counterintuitive for us to view seemingly "freak" events of chance as the almost inevitable events that they often are. For example, a statistics professor asked 1/2 of his students to flip a coin 100 times and record the results. He asked the other 1/2 to NOT flip a coin but just make up a sequence of 100 heads or tails.

Then the sequences generated by all the students were mixed up, and the prof examined them. In almost every case, the professor was able to tell whether the sequence was real or fake, by applying a simple rule: Real sequences typically contained a run of at least 6 consecutive heads or 6 consecutive tails. The probability for this if you toss 6 coins in a row is 1 in 32, so it was very likely to happen once in a sequence of 100 tosses.

Those who made up a fake sequence typically did not generate 6 identical tosses - they thought it would be too unlikely to happen. Ironically, by avoiding a pattern that they thought would give them away, they did give themselves away!

Answer 6

The only thing atheists have in common is a disbelief in deities, so I'm sure opinions vary on this.

I don't believe any aspect of my life is planned out for me or is part of anyone's "plan", so, to me, everything is chance, luck or coincidence. I'm just going along for the ride, and there is no need to rationalize any of it - I'm OK with the fact that some things cannot be explained or defined.

Answer 7

they happen by chance, luck or coincidence (I wouldn't include coincidence btw)

I dont believe there are such forces called chance or luck just that some events can happen in your favour.

besides if god is meddling with chance and luck then A) some people with "bad" luck must be feeling a bit persecuted by him and B) why not meddle in something really important - like children starving to death for example

Answer 8

There are no situations of chance, luck, or coincidence. Everything happens for a reason.

Answer 9

By chance, or coincidence. They don't need to be rationalized, they're random.

Edit: for example, if I'm playing poker, and I pull a full house, I don't say "wow, I must be really lucky today" I say, "I need to make the best of this hand because I know there's only a 1:700 chance of drawing a full house"

Answer 10

"so how do situations of chance, luck, or coincidence happen"

the question is flawed. chance and coincidence are just that, chance and coincidence. luck is based on perception, if a chance event turns out in what you perceive as favorable to you, that is what you would call luck.

Answer 11

Actually, the preferred term is "probability".

Given enough people (6.5 billion by the latest count) and enough time (25-30,000 years of human civilization), the odds are that some pretty unlikely events are BOUND to occur (people "miraculously" surviving accidents, or winning the lottery, or whatever). If you flip a coin enough times, it's almost inevitable that, at some point, you'll get a streak of twenty "heads" in a row. You'd be more surprised if they DIDN'T happen. And people tend to remember and focus on the times where they prayed or asked for things to go their way and did, and forget about or minimize all the times when prayers failed ("it was just his time", or "God had other plans for me", or whatever). it's just human nature.