From what I’ve seen, most theologians don’t even believe that they know how to defend what they believe. The most common sentiment among them seems to be that the part of theology that seeks to demonstrate the existence of God is the crudest and least interesting part. Those theologians who do bother to try and support their belief with arguments, like Swinburne and Plantinga, rarely agree with one another.
In any case, comparing theologians to physicists as you do is silly. Physicists are the experts of physics because they know about the most accurate theories and the evidence that supports them. What do theologians know about? The evidence for the existence of God? Most of them admit there isn’t any. The most accurate version of Christianity? There’s no way to judge accuracy without evidence.
Some people who call themselves theologians may be experts on the history of Christianity, and a precious few might even be experts on what Christians actually believe these days, but none of them are experts about the actual claims of Christianity: That God loves us, that he sent his son to Earth, that he’s got a blissful afterlife set up for good people, and so forth. Without evidence to know about, theologians have no more expertise on this subject than average Christians. Therefore, the theologian’s version of Christianity is no more valid than the average Christian’s version of it, and is no more deserving of our attention. In fact, because theologians represent such a tiny fraction of Christians, it deserves less.
I think you might be deflecting the main point here. Possibly without realising it.
You have a better opportunity to practice your skills as a rationalist if you respond to the [least convenient] (http://tinyurl.com/LWleastconvenient) possible interpretation of this comment.
I would propose that the “experts” being referred to are experts in debating the existence of God. ie of all the arguments that have ever been put forward for the existence of God, these are the people who know the most compelling ones. The most rationally compelling, logically coherent arguments.
Perhaps you mean to say that no such people exist, or no such arguments exist. It is possible that that’s true. But it is almost certain that having brief conversations with garden-variety theists, won’t expose us to these arguments.
If you happen to have gone looking for these arguments, with an open mind and a willingness to genuinely consider their merits, and you remain unconvinced, then that’s fine. I’m pretty sure that if I were to go looking for the most compelling arguments, with a genuinely open mind, i would remain unconvinced too. But i think it’s important to acknowledge that I haven’t actually done so. I haven’t done the research and I haven’t given myself the best possible opportunity to change my mind. - There were other things that I was more interested in doing.
For those of us who haven’t heard the most compelling arguments: I honestly think that’s fine. But i think the original poster (and Psycho) are describing an important bias, that we should be aware of and careful about in our own thinking: the tendency to reason as if we have already seen the most compelling evidence for something, even when there’s no reason to believe that you have.
When you realise that you’ve not yet seen the most convincing version of an argument, there’s no reason to raise your probability estimates. But you also shouldn’t lower them in the same way that you would if you were sure you’d seen all the evidence that there was.
From what I’ve seen, most theologians don’t even believe that they know how to defend what they believe. The most common sentiment among them seems to be that the part of theology that seeks to demonstrate the existence of God is the crudest and least interesting part. Those theologians who do bother to try and support their belief with arguments, like Swinburne and Plantinga, rarely agree with one another.
In any case, comparing theologians to physicists as you do is silly. Physicists are the experts of physics because they know about the most accurate theories and the evidence that supports them. What do theologians know about? The evidence for the existence of God? Most of them admit there isn’t any. The most accurate version of Christianity? There’s no way to judge accuracy without evidence.
Some people who call themselves theologians may be experts on the history of Christianity, and a precious few might even be experts on what Christians actually believe these days, but none of them are experts about the actual claims of Christianity: That God loves us, that he sent his son to Earth, that he’s got a blissful afterlife set up for good people, and so forth. Without evidence to know about, theologians have no more expertise on this subject than average Christians. Therefore, the theologian’s version of Christianity is no more valid than the average Christian’s version of it, and is no more deserving of our attention. In fact, because theologians represent such a tiny fraction of Christians, it deserves less.
I think you might be deflecting the main point here. Possibly without realising it.
You have a better opportunity to practice your skills as a rationalist if you respond to the [least convenient] (http://tinyurl.com/LWleastconvenient) possible interpretation of this comment.
I would propose that the “experts” being referred to are experts in debating the existence of God. ie of all the arguments that have ever been put forward for the existence of God, these are the people who know the most compelling ones. The most rationally compelling, logically coherent arguments.
Perhaps you mean to say that no such people exist, or no such arguments exist. It is possible that that’s true. But it is almost certain that having brief conversations with garden-variety theists, won’t expose us to these arguments.
If you happen to have gone looking for these arguments, with an open mind and a willingness to genuinely consider their merits, and you remain unconvinced, then that’s fine. I’m pretty sure that if I were to go looking for the most compelling arguments, with a genuinely open mind, i would remain unconvinced too. But i think it’s important to acknowledge that I haven’t actually done so. I haven’t done the research and I haven’t given myself the best possible opportunity to change my mind. - There were other things that I was more interested in doing.
For those of us who haven’t heard the most compelling arguments: I honestly think that’s fine. But i think the original poster (and Psycho) are describing an important bias, that we should be aware of and careful about in our own thinking: the tendency to reason as if we have already seen the most compelling evidence for something, even when there’s no reason to believe that you have.
When you realise that you’ve not yet seen the most convincing version of an argument, there’s no reason to raise your probability estimates. But you also shouldn’t lower them in the same way that you would if you were sure you’d seen all the evidence that there was.