Question for BGP's atheists/agnostics

Since Clyde officially handed Cch5432's torch to me, I thought I'd go and look at some of his posts. This is a thread that he started back in 2009.

Let's say that I sit down at a table with 3 of my friends with a standard, 52-card deck that has been shuffled. I deal out 13 cards to each person, and I receive all 13 spades, from 2 to Ace.

There is no video of me or anyone messing with the deck at any point. Using your powers of observation and logic, would you assume that:

A) I randomly received all 13 spades.

B) I took some action beforehand that made me deal 13 spades to myself.

Let's hear your thoughts. Please play along and it will make sense.

I'm the person who thinks it was random.

Random most likely

I'm trusting. Random for me.

Rigged.

Not your target audience but will answer. Someone had a hand in that, it wasn't random.

No question someone rigged it. The percentages of it happening randomly are so astronomically small that it would never happen if you spent your entire life shuffling and dealing, and repeating.

If you repeat this process over billions of years I expect your result many many times over.

Okay, so lets say it was random. The odds of this happening are 169,066,442 to 1.

What if we sat down at the table again, and after shuffling, a perfect hand was dealt to all 4 players (each player received 13 cards of the same suit).

The odds of that happening are 2,235,197,406,895,366,368,301,559,999 to 1.

Still random or was the deck stacked?

I'm tearing up a bit.

Okay, so lets say it was random. The odds of this happening are 169,066,442 to 1.

 

What if we sat down at the table again, and after shuffling, a perfect hand was dealt to all 4 players (each player received 13 cards of the same suit).

 

The odds of that happening are 2,235,197,406,895,366,368,301,559,999 to 1.

 

Still random or was the deck stacked?

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I came up with a much higher number... 635,013,559,600 to 1. (Of course, it's been years since I took a statistics course!)

If you repeat this process over billions of years I expect your result many many times over.

It *can* happen, no doubt. But if it happens to ME, there's no question that I'm saying the deck is stacked.

I think a better way of looking at it wouldn't be to ask if it were random or rigged, because either COULD happen. I think the better question is what is the more likely cause?

I think a better way of looking at it wouldn't be to ask if it were random or rigged, because either COULD happen. I think the better question is what is the more likely cause?

The old "possibility" versus "probability" conundrum.

The old "possibility" versus "probability" conundrum.

The way I see it, anything is possible when it comes to the unknown. Even the most staunch atheist I would think would admit that there is a possibility that God exists. While the most religious can even admit that there is a possibility that nothing beyond this life exists.

It's all about what's the more probable scenario IMO.