Just reading your own link, his “challenge” is something whose irrationality almost anyone here could see a mile off, and if he actually thought that that challenge made any sense, he must have had a second brain malfunction that led him to make the challenge before he had the one that happened after the challenge. (Or more realistically, I’d say he had an emotional breakdown first, then made the challenge, then had a physical brain malfunction.)
He also doesn’t seem to understand the objections people gave to him. At the top of that very link he quotes someone asking why particularly Christianity since it seems so petty. His later reaction (after the brain malfunction) is “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?” Of course, to the extent that his God would seem less petty in a smaller universe, all the alternatives would seem less petty too.
It’s also an incredible coincidence for a rational conversion (but not so incredible for a brain malfunction) that the religion he picked was one that was only a short distance, if at all, from the one predominant in his society and his upbringing. Why don’t people in Christian societies ever ask God for a sign, get one, and turn into devout Muslims?
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.
Why don’t people in Christian societies ever ask God for a sign, get one, and turn into devout Muslims?
What hypothesis are you trying to refute with this question?
Edit: If it’s the rational conversion hypothesis, note that people also are more likely to rationally convert to positions they’ve been exposed to, even in domains far away from religion. If it’s the Catholicism is true hypothesis, this would not be surprising.
If it’s the rational conversion hypothesis, then while people are more likely to rationally convert to positions they’ve been exposed to, it doesn’t seem to me that they are enough more likely to explain the way conversions actually work. Furthermore, he supposedly got an experience directly from God. It wasn’t a rational conversion in the sense of having been deduced from things he already knew, it was a new experience, and I wouldn’t expect such things to be correlated with cultural context in the same way that ordinary rational conversions are. God can easily send Catholic experiences to Muslims and Muslim experiences to Catholics after all. Brain malfunctions, on the other hand, would be correlated with cultural context.
If it’s the Catholiicism is true hypothesis, then this example would be unsurprising, but other examples involving other religions would be even more surprising than they are now.
Just reading your own link, his “challenge” is something whose irrationality almost anyone here could see a mile off, and if he actually thought that that challenge made any sense, he must have had a second brain malfunction that led him to make the challenge before he had the one that happened after the challenge. (Or more realistically, I’d say he had an emotional breakdown first, then made the challenge, then had a physical brain malfunction.)
He also doesn’t seem to understand the objections people gave to him. At the top of that very link he quotes someone asking why particularly Christianity since it seems so petty. His later reaction (after the brain malfunction) is “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?” Of course, to the extent that his God would seem less petty in a smaller universe, all the alternatives would seem less petty too.
It’s also an incredible coincidence for a rational conversion (but not so incredible for a brain malfunction) that the religion he picked was one that was only a short distance, if at all, from the one predominant in his society and his upbringing. Why don’t people in Christian societies ever ask God for a sign, get one, and turn into devout Muslims?
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.
What hypothesis are you trying to refute with this question?
Edit: If it’s the rational conversion hypothesis, note that people also are more likely to rationally convert to positions they’ve been exposed to, even in domains far away from religion. If it’s the Catholicism is true hypothesis, this would not be surprising.
If it’s the rational conversion hypothesis, then while people are more likely to rationally convert to positions they’ve been exposed to, it doesn’t seem to me that they are enough more likely to explain the way conversions actually work. Furthermore, he supposedly got an experience directly from God. It wasn’t a rational conversion in the sense of having been deduced from things he already knew, it was a new experience, and I wouldn’t expect such things to be correlated with cultural context in the same way that ordinary rational conversions are. God can easily send Catholic experiences to Muslims and Muslim experiences to Catholics after all. Brain malfunctions, on the other hand, would be correlated with cultural context.
If it’s the Catholiicism is true hypothesis, then this example would be unsurprising, but other examples involving other religions would be even more surprising than they are now.