A hypothetical question, especially for the atheists and skeptics in the audience...

[LetalisK]

That hypothetical question doesn't go to one of my core believes.

And neither does this one as lack of belief is not a belief in and of itself. That's the rhetoric that the religious try to use to get atheism classified as a religion.

Edit: Thinking about it more, I guess people could honestly not come up with anything, but it blows my mind that on a site devoted to activities that stretch the bounds of our imagination that this is our Achilles' Heel.

 

[Knife]

I'll answer your question if you answer mine. What would be your favourite colour if there were no colours?
If you name any colour you'll be wrong because there are no colours.
If you say no colour then you're dodging the question.

 

[VonKlaw]

To the OP: Please pick your favorite breed of cat. You are not allowed to include any breeds of cat that actual exists. Go.

 

[Schadrach]

That people sponsored Uwe Boll's kickstarter is almost certainly the work of Satan.

This guy gets it.

There's a lot of serious/silly events to pick from (the father and son who survived riding a megatsunami in Alaska, the perfection of the moon covering the sun in a solar eclipse, the continued existence of North Korea's non-irradiated landscape, etc), but I'm going to go with the guy who got struck by lightning seven times, and the one time he dodged it, it struck his wife. Clearly someone is trying to get his attention.

Alternatively, the Bloop was actually Cthulhu turning over in his sleep.

I'm not sure why people are having such a hard time with this, but I'm religious, so maybe I'm just out of touch with my inner furious skeptic.

This guy gets it.

As far as more serious answers, I was not at all surprised that "creation of the universe" came up, for example. Another one I was kind of expecting was the whole "the right mix of elements in the right proportions happened to end up in an environment that would cause the particular series of reactions and following events necessary to result in the existence of living beings capable of wondering exactly how unlikely it was for the chain of events leading to their existence to happen in the first place."

Not the same. That hypothetical question doesn't go to one of my core believes. If I ignore that it is like asking me "If you were into bestiality, what kind of duck would you have relstions with?"

Why? That one is simple. There's one species of duck that has one of the highest penis size:body size ratios in the animal kingdom. If I am hypothetically into ducks, I'll go for the duck I'm less likely to murder in the process, since I'm not particularly into necrophilia (the female's genitalia are sized to accommodate the male, and accordingly are most likely among ducks to potentially accommodate a human male). Though it's also worth noting that the females genitalia follow a spiral shape, so it might be more difficult than it sounds. Side note: I don't generally know much about duck genitals, but WP knows an almost disturbing amount about them.

That hypothetical question doesn't go to one of my core believes.

And neither does this one as lack of belief is not a belief in and of itself. That's the rhetoric that the religious try to use to get atheism classified as a religion.

Edit: Thinking about it more, I guess people could honestly not come up with anything, but it blows my mind that on a site devoted to activities that stretch the bounds of our imagination that this is our Achilles' Heel.

I do find that amusingly ironic. Though hopefully since I demonstrated that the duck-fucking question was answerable without actually being into bestiality...

 

[Tenkage]

The creation of Doctor Who, I like to think a real time lord came to our time and is just telling the story of their hero or something LOL

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Guys, the point of a hypothetical is to place yourself in shoes that you aren't otherwise filling, otherwise it would simply be a question. The old "I know you aren't gay, but Johnny Depp or Mark Wahlberg". I don't think giving an answer will cause the atheist/agnostic police to give my door a knock to revoke my "non-believer" status or "man of science" badge.

That said, the origin of the universe is the low-hanging fruit here, and I'd have to say...(this is actually taking awhile, oops) that I'm not sure. Everything I've thought of, I've then come to logical or scientific reasoning for its occurrence. After 15 minutes, I think I partially apologize for the previous paragraph and can only say "what caused the Big Bang and its components, despite what we already know about it". Clearly it's easier for me to pretend that my sexual orientation is different or that I have sex with ducks than it is to pretend that I believe in the supernatural. Ya learn something everyday. (This post would look incredibly different if I deleted it and started over like I thought of doing).

 

[Glongpre]

Spontaneous combustion.

I really can't think of a single thing from human history that fits, but if i look at all history the answer would obviously be the creation of universe.

What if the universe was not created but instead has always been?

 

[Hagi]

To the OP: Please pick your favorite breed of cat. You are not allowed to include any breeds of cat that actual exists. Go.

Spoiler: That, unlike the original question, is easy.

As for the OP:

Can't actually think of anything where I'd consider divine influence a possibility. I mean there's plenty of things I don't know much, if anything, about and thus can't explain. And being unable to explain them I also can't explain them with anything divine.

For me to be able to consider an explanation for something involving the divine as a possibility would mean I could see some form of evidence for it, albeit inconclusive. If I believed such evidence existed I wouldn't be an agnostic.

Simply put, my own explanations for something being insufficient does not make other explanations likely by any amount.

As such my answer is everything. Everything is equally likely, and thus most likely, to be influenced by the divine.

 

[Akytalusia]

well, everything. nothing is more divinely inspired than anything. all according to plan.

 

[Schadrach]

To the OP: Please pick your favorite breed of cat. You are not allowed to include any breeds of cat that actual exists. Go.

Easier than the duck-fucking question. Grimalkin, 3rd edition Monster Manual II, page 122. In their natural form they resemble a larger than average grey house cat, but are shapeshifters and can adopt the form of any animal up to size category Large (basically things around the size of a bull). Also capable of speech and of roughly human intelligence.

It's the best cat, because it is *all* the cats.

How many more of these do I need to answer?

This "hypothetical" question clearly serves an agenda. Or, at best, is a troll.

Nope. Just thought it would be interesting to see what people came up with.

Wasn't really expecting quite the degree of angry responses. It would be like asking this crowd what their favorite astrological sign was, except instead of discussion regarding the stars that made them up, or which one has most aesthetically pleasing symbolism, or which set of traits they claim to represent is best, I got people attacking the very idea of the question being asked in the first place. You don't need to accept something as true in order to discuss it in a hypothetical sense.

If it helps, you can think of the original question in terms of possibly being performed by sufficiently advanced aliens with technology indistinguishable from magic/divine power. It doesn't really change what's being asked in any meaningful sense.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Probably yesterday when everyone was violently burned and mutilated and then were all replaced with different people who have full lifetimes of memories. Happy 1st day of life everyone! I wonder if we burn tomorrow!

 

[Schadrach]

Probably yesterday when everyone was violently burned and mutilated and then were all replaced with different people who have full lifetimes of memories. Happy 1st day of life everyone! I wonder if we burn tomorrow!

Last Thursday-ism, huh? [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Last_Thursdayism] Especially given that today is Friday, at least locally. =p

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Pretty much anything purely based on chance, as it's impossible to disprove that there isn't an overriding conciousness controlling it.

That being said, the inability to disprove =/= proof.

 

[broca]

Spontaneous combustion.

I really can't think of a single thing from human history that fits, but if i look at all history the answer would obviously be the creation of universe.

What if the universe was not created but instead has always been?

The scientific consensus seems (afaik) to be that there was a beginning of the universe(not that i understand the topic enough to really argue about it). Or do you mean "always been" in the sense of that there was another universe before ours, and another one before that one, and so on for all infinity?

 

[RJ 17]

Well, how the fuck can I answer it?! It's all well and good you saying I can't choose nothing, but there is no logical alternative. I do not believe in the divine, I do not believe in spirits or magic, or anything superstitious. So how can I say what is most likely to have happened from those things if I do not believe they exist in any shape or form? How?!

Byyyyy skipping over this topic and not bothering to respond to it? :3

That or just get silly with it.

For instance: The one thing I'd attribute to "supernatural or divine intervention" would be Justin Bieber's popularity. The kid quite obviously made a pact with the devil...

How else do you explain becoming such a smash hit while rockin' a haircut like this?

He's since moved onto a more "I'm Dylan from 90210" haircut, but that just further proves my point.

 

[broca]

Regardless of which event you mention, I as a skeptic feel that there's a 0% chance that the event in question involved anything supernatural or divine. So the question we're basically asked is "Of these events, which all have a 0% chance of being supernatural in any way, which one has the highest chance of involving something supernatural? Which 0% chance is the highest?" and the thing is, if the chance is always 0% then you can't pick a specific one.

Interesting. For me being skeptical means that i accept that there's no way to know certain things (like: does god exist?), which in turn means that i would never assume that the probability of any kind of divine intervention is zero, as it is just not testable and therefore neither verifiable nor disprovable. But then again, skepticism means different things to different people.

 

[Tanakh]

Guys, the point of a hypothetical is to place yourself in shoes that you aren't otherwise filling, otherwise it would simply be a question. The old "I know you aren't gay, but Johnny Depp or Mark Wahlberg". I don't think giving an answer will cause the atheist/agnostic police to give my door a knock to revoke my "non-believer" status or "man of science" badge.

That said, the origin of the universe is the low-hanging fruit here, and I'd have to say...(this is actually taking awhile, oops) that I'm not sure. Everything I've thought of, I've then come to logical or scientific reasoning for its occurrence. After 15 minutes, I think I partially apologize for the previous paragraph and can only say "what caused the Big Bang and its components, despite what we already know about it". Clearly it's easier for me to pretend that my sexual orientation is different or that I have sex with ducks than it is to pretend that I believe in the supernatural. Ya learn something everyday. (This post would look incredibly different if I deleted it and started over like I thought of doing).

Well, he might have wanted to say that, but in the current wording is more akin to:

"If you were forced to have sex with a duck, tell me which species, gender and characteristics. And NO you are NOT ALLOWED to say you wouldn't have sex with a duck"... I mean... wtf.

As for the question, I would go for a slender black swan, i know it's not a duck, but gimme some leeway bro... sorry, was getting on the wrong train of thought. I would be tempted to say quantum physics due their different nature, but I fear it would be even a better example of why current occidental divinites can't either exist or manifest themselves because the randomness fucks with them, God doesn't play dice with the world and all that stuff; and since oriental divinities are not exactly what you would call supernatural or divine... tough it is interesting how those geometries seem to blend more with spiritual oriental ideas.

 

[Compatriot Block]

First, for me it would be the cop-out answer, the beginning of the universe, since I can't think of anything else.

I'm sorry OP. Frankly I agree that your question actually would benefit from answers from atheists, but apparently some people can't avoid the urge to be contradictory or irritating.

It defeats the purpose of a hypothetical question if you can pick "I refuse to answer." There is no difference between an atheist answering this question and a religious person answering one from an atheist perspective. He obviously added the "no dodging" clause in an attempt to PREVENT WHAT PEOPLE ARE DOING ANYWAY.

God damn, just reading some of the posts on the first page is testing my patience.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think you might be misunderstanding what skeptic and atheist mean. Part of being a skeptic is not accepting explanations that rely on unprovable claims, which is what supernatural means. Being atheist is pretty similar with respect to the divine. Being skeptic or atheist simply doesn't support the idea that something is likely to have been supernatural; that's not one of the ways that we explain or understand things. I know you asked for answers, but the question simply doesn't apply to the people you're asking.

And "atheist" literally just means you're not a theist. I don't care if there's a God, honestly, and I don't specifically believe in any one God, but I don't reject God or anything supernatural.

I apply scientific reasoning to things, and don't assume that just because we don't have an explanation of something right now, it must be God or ponies.

Now, the question itself, I think someone else answered best:

Spontaneous combustion.

Granted, some incidents have been explained, and others might be explainable, but it's still freaking weird.

I don't know. I could probably name a lot of things. And to be honest, they PROBABLY all fall under "not explained yet," not "goddidit." I mean, fucking magnets, how to THEY work?