Coincidence or truth?

There are some famous people who have mocked God and resulted in their untimely death. To name a few would be Bon Scott, Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, and the designer of the Titanic. The designer of the Titanic said " not even God can sink this ship". Of course, we all know what happened to the Titanic. My question is would this be considered a coincidence or is the fact that the ship sank proof that God exists? Same with John Lennon saying the Beatles are bigger than Jesus. Then years later we was assassinated.

There are some famous people who have mocked God and resulted in their untimely death.

This statement is clearly problematic is many ways. To begin with, it is an unfalsifiable assertion. By the phrase "and resulted in" we are claiming causality (second problem) where no such causality as been established (we only have correlation). This is a clear Questionable Cause fallacy.

Now to your question:

...would this be considered a coincidence or is the fact that the ship sank proof that God exists?

This question is a False Dilemma , there are other options here.

First, it is certainly NOT "proof" of God's existence, and I say this as a logician and not an atheist. At most, one can claim that it evidence for God's existence. But in my opinion it is extremely poor evidence, and here is why:

What about the billions of people who mock God that live healthy, happy, and long lives? This is an example of the confirmation bias, only looking at examples that support a conclusion, and ignoring all those that falsify it.

Really bad predictions and "prophecies" are those that are "open ended." So if I generically predict that you are going to die, and you do... eight years later, that doesn't make me psychic. If people died the moment they mocked God, then there would be something worth investigating.

Second, I would not even call these coincidences as a coincidence is defined as "a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection." Again, these might be "remarkable" if the people died within moments of "mocking God," but they didn't. These aren't coincidences; they are statistical probabilities based on the number of people who mock God (billions) and the number of people who eventually die (everyone).

First, I do not like the word coincidence how it used here and other speculative metaphysical propositions like Course in Miracles. It is invariably a 'limited pick and chose' of circumstance of cause and effect events that are couched in terms to justify 'one's own beliefs. When all tragic events of unfortunate 'before one's time' deaths are taken into consideration there is not such discernable relationship to base one's argument.

It is clearly an argument based on 'begging the question,' which assumes the selective way the cause and effect events are argued to justify the existence of God, and/or Divine punishment, which is assumed when the argument is constructed.

It, of course, also represents other fallicies like previously mentioned such as: 'questionable cause. and 'false dichotomy/'

This indeed is a big R'ed Letter Day' for this question.

@ Frank Doonan
I do not understand your response. I agree with Bo, and I am a Believer; unless the nexus between these anti-God mocking events and resulting death becomes an order of magnitude tighter, i.e., far more consistently observed and within shorter time spans, indicating causality, the proposed relationships are preposterous, and give having 'Faith' a bad name. Why should God choose to exact punishment in this earthly life for the same offense on some and not others? Of course, punishment for all such (non-repentant) offenders in the hereafter is another matter….
Also, I am very familiar with “A Course in Miracles (ACIM).” This may become discussion fodder on another day (though probably not directly related to logical fallacies).

Coincidence or truth?

The post's title by itself is a false dichotomy.

The way I was taught to recognize illogical statements is to find one, and come up with similar ones:

• Leaves just "falling" off trees this week (for no reason), or a sign of the End Times? You choose.
• I heard Billy Bob use the Lord's name in vain 13 times yesterday. He then woke up with a headache this morning. Coincidence? I'll leave it to you to decide.
• I painted my house a light blue just 3 weeks before meeting the woman who would end up to be my wife. Do you still doubt the power of blue to increase love, or will you continue to be ignorant? It's your decision.
• Do you support our troops or not? It's a simple yes and no question. I don't see the bumper sticker on your truck, so I'm pretty sure which of the two answers you are.
• There are some famous people who have mocked God and resulted in living to their nineties. Coincidence? Or the truth?
• There are some famous people who all lived—at one time or another—in the state of Illinois and resulted in their untimely death. Coincidence or is it time we recognize the location of evil?
• I saw blinking lights in the sky last night. Are you going to finally admit to aliens, or are you going to live like sheep and vote for Trump? Which is it?

You're either for us, or you're against us.