if science discovered tomorrow that the universe was half its apparent age, and estimated the stars as half their current number, would the belief in God somehow be twice as credible in your eyes?
I am not saying twice credible, but it would be more credible. If science reduced the age of universe once, it may do it again, and who knows… there is a tiny chance it could go down to 6000 years.
More generally, smaller reliability of science would increase the probability that some intelligent agent is acting in the universe.
Problem is, increasing the probability from 0.0001 to 0.0002 is not the same thing as converting.
The argument he was replying to was not about probability, but about pettiness. People could not accept that Christianity contains certain ideas that are petty in contrast to the scope of the universe. He then asked if a smaller universe would make them think Christianity is less petty. To which my reply would be that since Christianity was being compared to rival religions, any rivals would become less petty by a similar factor, so Christianity would still not improve comparatively.
I am not saying twice credible, but it would be more credible. If science reduced the age of universe once, it may do it again, and who knows… there is a tiny chance it could go down to 6000 years.
More generally, smaller reliability of science would increase the probability that some intelligent agent is acting in the universe.
Problem is, increasing the probability from 0.0001 to 0.0002 is not the same thing as converting.
The argument he was replying to was not about probability, but about pettiness. People could not accept that Christianity contains certain ideas that are petty in contrast to the scope of the universe. He then asked if a smaller universe would make them think Christianity is less petty. To which my reply would be that since Christianity was being compared to rival religions, any rivals would become less petty by a similar factor, so Christianity would still not improve comparatively.