What Are The Odds?

 

How’s your bracket looking?

As you can see mine suffered lots of losses in the first round. The left side is totally busted. And I only have one of my final four guesses correct.

Of course, no one in the history of NCAA basketball has ever had a perfect bracket. No one.

Do you know the odds?

San Diego State University NewsCenter asked Fowler College of Business lecturer Chris O’Byrne, a college sports fanatic and former options trader on Wall Street, to calculate the odds of a perfect NCAA bracket.

O’Bryne estimated the chances of picking a perfect bracket are: 1 in 2 to the 67th power, or 1 in 147,573,952,589,676,412,928, or about 147 quintillion.

Brandon Banes, an assistant math professor at Lipscomb University figured that if you knew something about basketball the odds were better. 1 in 120.2 billion.

To have a real chance Barnes suggested this scenario. “The U.S. population is roughly a third of a billion, so we would need everybody to make three to get to a billion and then do that a billion more times to get to a quintillion. And then you have to do that nine more times to get to nine quintillion.”

Banes said that means every person in the country will need to fill out 27 billion brackets so we can reach the odds of getting that perfect bracket.

All of this got me to thinking about unbelievers who don’t believe in God and who deny the Bible is the Word of God.

One of the greatest proofs of the Bible is its prophetic statements. In regards to the Messianic prophecies there are over 300 that relate to His birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection made hundreds of years before Jesus lived.

In his book, Science Speaks, Peter Stoner applies the modern science of probability to just eight prophecies regarding Christ. He says, “The chance that any man might have …fulfilled all eight prophecies is one in 10 to the 17th. That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.” (one hundred quadrillion).

Stoner suggests that “we take 10 to the 17th silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state 2 feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly… Blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up [that one marked silver dollar.] What chance would he have of getting the right one?”

Stoner concludes, “Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing those eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man,…providing they wrote them in their own wisdom.”

Yet, Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled every one of the Old Testament prophecies. What are the odds?

Furthermore, think of the complexity of the cosmos. All of the laws of science that regulate the perfect atmosphere for us to live on planet earth. We know with exact precision the times of the tides. Sunset. Sunrise. A full moon. And the coming solar eclipse coming on April 8th. Tens of thousands of people are traveling to see the eclipse in the perfect location of its totality. They trust that the scientists are correct.

If you live in Indianapolis, one of the areas of totality, we’re told the solar eclipse will begin at 12:45 p.m. CDT and peak at 2:04 p.m. It’s slated to end at 3:20.

It’s obvious that our universe demonstrates order, complexity, and design that we can trust and calculate with absolute accuracy.

How do reasonable people think all of this occurred by mere chance?

In his book, Man Does Not Stand Alone, A. Cressy Morrison offered this illustration. Suppose you take 10 coins and number them 1 to 10. Your chances of drawing number 1 are 1 to 10. To draw 1 and 2 in succession are 1 in 100. To draw 1, 2, 3, in succession are 1 in 1,000. He further calculates to simply draw ten coins in succession would “reach the unbelievable figure of one chance in 10 billion.”

So, what are the odds the universe just came into being with a big bang, independent of any intelligence Source? The earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all of the planets just happened by mere chance? That the 3,916 solar systems that NASA says exist within the Milky Way Galaxy are an accident? That mankind just evolved?

What are the odds?

For me, I believe, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).

I Believe, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 4:16).

And I agree with the Psalmist, “The fool has said in his heart there is no God” (Ps. 14:1).

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman