Or, “lots of people believe X” is (when that’s all you’ve got) strong evidence, but it can be broken down into sub-possibilities depending on how they come to believe X, and when you look at that in the case of (say) Christianity it turns out not to be very good evidence after all. (For instance, because most people who believe it turn out to believe it mostly because other people induced them to believe it when they were too young to think it through properly.)
(I think the contrary evidence would be plenty strong enough even if “lots of people believe it” were good evidence in this case, but it happens not to be.)
“Some people believe it” counts as evidence. But if you think the spread of Christianity seems likely to happen without any deities (see this possible explanation) then the vast majority of the people who’ve professed belief in it do not constitute any additional evidence. Some of those living after their countries dispensed with heresy/blasphemy laws seem like exceptions.
This is compatible with what Thomas said, as long as his prior for the Christian hypothesis is sufficiently lower than that for the Red Riding Hood hypothesis, and that doesn’t seem unreasonable given certain construals of the “Christian hypothesis”.
Or, it is really rather strong evidence but there are all sorts of other evidence (including other people’s beliefs) that overwhelm it.
Or, “lots of people believe X” is (when that’s all you’ve got) strong evidence, but it can be broken down into sub-possibilities depending on how they come to believe X, and when you look at that in the case of (say) Christianity it turns out not to be very good evidence after all. (For instance, because most people who believe it turn out to believe it mostly because other people induced them to believe it when they were too young to think it through properly.)
(I think the contrary evidence would be plenty strong enough even if “lots of people believe it” were good evidence in this case, but it happens not to be.)
“Some people believe it” counts as evidence. But if you think the spread of Christianity seems likely to happen without any deities (see this possible explanation) then the vast majority of the people who’ve professed belief in it do not constitute any additional evidence. Some of those living after their countries dispensed with heresy/blasphemy laws seem like exceptions.
This is compatible with what Thomas said, as long as his prior for the Christian hypothesis is sufficiently lower than that for the Red Riding Hood hypothesis, and that doesn’t seem unreasonable given certain construals of the “Christian hypothesis”.