Unless you weren't sure. Then it'd be enemy anemone manatee amenity monotony, apparantly.

The Bayesian approach is very powerful if you can put in some prior probabilities, collect some data, and then revise the probability estimates based on the fit of your model to the data. After several iterations you can arrive at an efficient and accurate answer. But if there are no data-based iterations? If you start and end the process with your own assumptions, which are of unknown quality? I just don’t understand what has been accomplished.

That's a great point to make about Swinburne, although I think he has a lot more going for him than "assumptions ... of unknown quality". He gives all sorts of philosophical arguments for the quality of his assumptions. They're assumptions that don't exactly have empirical data going for them or against them. Still, his project--trying to prove the existence of God using all of the universe as the data to be explained (e.g., what is the probability of there being a universe given an all-loving, all-powerful God)--must look quite weird from a scientist's point of view.

A friend of mine's slogan used to be "No brain, no pain," which covers quite a lot of Massachusetts drivers.

I go away for a few hours, and philosophy breaks out!

I'm a little rusty with my probability, but does the probability of there being a universe given an all-loving, all-powerful God have anything to do with the probability of an all-loving, all-powerful God given the existence of the universe?

Still, his project--trying to prove the existence of God using all of the universe as the data to be explained (e.g., what is the probability of there being a universe given an all-loving, all-powerful God)--must look quite weird from a scientist's point of view.

Yes, it's a BIG project in a way that most science is not. Most scientists have to accept that their career will be spent in a sort of professional myopia-always focused on the next little step. I think it was Goethe who said that "the scientist must live as though he is going to be 300 years old." By contrast philosopy and mathematics are BIG and can focus on the horizon.

I'm a little rusty with my probability, but does the probability of there being a universe given an all-loving, all-powerful God have anything to do with the probability of an all-loving, all-powerful God given the existence of the universe?

If you know the marginals (the unconditional probability of a universe and the unconditional probability of an all-loving, all-powerful God) then the relationship between Tommy's two probabilities can be found through the Bayesian techniques used by Swinburne. If you don't know the marginals then you can't answer the question.

I'm a little rusty with my probability, but does the probability of there being a universe given an all-loving, all-powerful God have anything to do with the probability of an all-loving, all-powerful God given the existence of the universe?

I think I would argue no, as I think your first conditional probability is 1. (That is, an ALAPG would necessarily have both the desire and power to create a Universe, to spread his beneficence.) If it is 1 regardless of the value of the second conditional probability, they'll be independent in the statistical sense.

If you know the marginals (the unconditional probability of a universe and the unconditional probability of an all-loving, all-powerful God) then the relationship between Tommy's two probabilities can be found through the Bayesian techniques used by Swinburne.

OK, that rings a bell.

I think I would argue no, as I think your first conditional probability is 1. (That is, an ALAPG would necessarily have both the desire and power to create a Universe, to spread his beneficence.)

1 is certainly a plausible value to assign, although one could argue that God doesn't necessarily create the universe, since some theists argue he has the freedom to refrain from doing so. (I don't know if Swinburne takes this line. My guess is that he thinks that God doesn't have freedom at all, since for Swinburne one has freedom, roughly, only if one must choose between one's self-interest and the moral course of action. Since God always does the morally best, then in any world in which he exists, he creates a universe.)

Admittedly, you didn't say that God necessarily creates the universe, but necessarily has the desire to creat the universe, which is a different claim, though it might, in God's case, amount to the same thing.

1 is certainly a plausible value to assign, although one could argue that God doesn't necessarily create the universe, since some theists argue he has the freedom to refrain from doing so.

Yes, but in this context, it equates to saying that he has the freedom not to be all-loving. Which may be theologically of interest, but would offend against one of our premises here were he ever to make that choice. (One might argue that God needs both the ability to choose not to do good and the desire always to choose good in order to be considered as all-loving rather than just mechanical, but he still winds up doing good.)

So, God may not necessarily create the universe, but an all-loving God does.