In his book, How We Believe, religious skeptic Michael Shermer states "In our complex and contingent world, random events often happen in seemingly peculiar sequences that cry out for meaning. We usually rise to the occasion, finding patterns in nature even when they do not exist or have no real significance...." A claim somewhat along this line was made in the TV show Numb3rs by mathematics professor Epps--that people look for, and think they find, patterns in random events.
You can't watch a movie or TV show about crime without seeing detectives attempting to solve crimes by trying to find patterns in a collection of information. They work backwards from the end result to find links between the pieces of information and possibly back to a cause.
Yes, we look for patterns. It's part of our survival instinct. With this ability, we can make sense of things that happen. It helps us understand our world, and--most importantly--make forecasts about events. It's a good thing. It can become a problem, though, when we see events as part of a pattern without enough evidence to justify a relationship. Thus, we may make false connections between events, or assume cause-effect relationships that may not actually exist. Some say this error is the origin of Christianity and all other religions. The thinking is that ancient people attributed to the work of God events which were really random, natural events that seemed to be related in some unknown way, and that they created God as the master orchestrater. The beliefs that formed have been perpetuated even to this day by what some call "subjective validation." It would go something like this: Say that I am in the midst of a crisis. I am told that God will help me if I pray (or make a sacrifice, or do a good deed, or whatever). I do that, and the crisis is alleviated, or at least I feel better about it. Thus, I conclude that God is real and helps those who meet whatever conditions are expected. Now, if I had not done anything, the crisis may have cleared up naturally, or maybe I did something that changed circumstances in a natural way, but there was no God involved. Then I spread the error by telling others that God helped me, encouraging others to take the same. All this gives our society whatever evils are attributed to religion, or at least causes people to be dependent and order their lives based on that which doesn't exist.
OK, some may see patterns that others consider random events. But what about the other side of this coin--what about NOT seeing patterns that actually DO exist? Most of us have taken some kind of test where we've had to look at a field of numbers and pick out the ones that are part of a sequence. In some cases, we succeeded, but in some, we didn't. How successful we are depends to some extent on natural perceptual ability (such as that exhibited by John Nash played by Russell Crowe in the film "A Beautiful Mind"). The size of the field and the complexity of the relationships also affect our ability to find the numbers. In the case of a word jumble--a field of letters in which words are planted in vertical, horizontal, or diagonal lines--we are normally given the words we are to look for, which makes the task much easier. If we have some kind of key, or know what we are looking for, we are much more effective with these puzzles.
So, even though we look for patterns, and while we may find patterns that don't really exist, we also don't always find ones that may actually be there. Moreover, we may find patterns that aren't supported by clear evidence, and the events may appear to others to be random, but actually, a relationship between the events may exist on some deeper level we can't perceive at the time.
The skeptic may say, "The events you claim to be the work of God, and therefore used to support the existence of God, are actually random, natural events with no relationship to each other or back to any deity. You see patterns that don't exist." The Christian could say, "There is a pattern--you simply fail to see it." Considering how we are, either proposition could be true. Just because we don't see the pattern doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
All this doesn't prove anything, and it's not my intention to prove anything. I want to point out that while the Christian's interpretation of personal experiences may be considered problematic, the argument that Christians always see patterns that don't exist has problems of its own. It seems to me that If we approach this without any presumptions, both sides carry equal weight. It's just another case of not having enough data to draw any firm conclusions, so we have to make decisions with the small amount of data we have--something we do all the time in many areas of life.
Any thoughts?