I once thought I had a fast, crushing argument against the existence of God. I would point to various objects around me and ask “What does that do?” e.g. point at a beach ball and they would say “bounce,” point at a bird and they would say “sing.” And I would triumphantly say, “See, God can’t exist!” and they would look at me blankly.
In my mind, every object I had ever seen did it’s own peculiar thing—that is, it didn’t do “just anything.” Therefore the idea of omnipotence—the ability to make objects do whatever you please is contradicted by all the evidence, and therefore God (a supposedly omnipotent being) is too.
What I didn’t grasp, was that all the evidence of every object they had seen in their entire life wasn’t convincing to them(!), as long as they could still imagine a counter-example. They gave their own imagination the same weight as real evidence. So it wasn’t a quick argument after all, it would require explaining evidence vs. imagination and that would lead to another thing, and another, and before you know it, it’s an entire website full of articles. So I have to agree with Eliezer, there’s no simple way to convey an entire mental framework in short order.
I once thought I had a fast, crushing argument against the existence of God. I would point to various objects around me and ask “What does that do?” e.g. point at a beach ball and they would say “bounce,” point at a bird and they would say “sing.” And I would triumphantly say, “See, God can’t exist!” and they would look at me blankly.
In my mind, every object I had ever seen did it’s own peculiar thing—that is, it didn’t do “just anything.” Therefore the idea of omnipotence—the ability to make objects do whatever you please is contradicted by all the evidence, and therefore God (a supposedly omnipotent being) is too.
What I didn’t grasp, was that all the evidence of every object they had seen in their entire life wasn’t convincing to them(!), as long as they could still imagine a counter-example. They gave their own imagination the same weight as real evidence. So it wasn’t a quick argument after all, it would require explaining evidence vs. imagination and that would lead to another thing, and another, and before you know it, it’s an entire website full of articles. So I have to agree with Eliezer, there’s no simple way to convey an entire mental framework in short order.