Arguing about the existence of a god is like arguing about free will. The only worthwhile argument concerns differences in anticipated experience, notably things like “Does prayer work?”.
If his interest resulted in actions that would provide evidence of his existence, then yes. Also, if libertarian free will existed then the world would be an even more different place.
I’d argue that libertarian free will is an incoherent concept, and therefore there is no counterfactual world where it “exists”, or if there is, that it is identical to any nondeterministic world without libertarian free will. On the other hand the existence of Thor might be exceedingly improbable, but it’s not incoherent.
In order to dissolve the disagreement: I think the first sentence of my original comment here was ill-posed. It makes sense to me because it serves as a convenient pointer for the type of “religion” espoused by a significant proportion of people which involves “belief” and “faith” and does not actually contain any differences in anticipated experience from a non-religious position. However, given only the original sentence it does not mean much. And even with elaboration it is pretty much going to be tautological. As to my second post I expect that contemplating that particular “counterfactual” is going to be along the lines of considering the “counterfactual” under which 2+2=5 which I do not anticipate being a particularly enlightening discussion based on what I’ve already read on the subject.
Arguing about the existence of a god is like arguing about free will. The only worthwhile argument concerns differences in anticipated experience, notably things like “Does prayer work?”.
The world would be a very different place if, say, Thor existed and took a strong interest in the affairs of the human world.
If his interest resulted in actions that would provide evidence of his existence, then yes. Also, if libertarian free will existed then the world would be an even more different place.
I’d argue that libertarian free will is an incoherent concept, and therefore there is no counterfactual world where it “exists”, or if there is, that it is identical to any nondeterministic world without libertarian free will. On the other hand the existence of Thor might be exceedingly improbable, but it’s not incoherent.
In order to dissolve the disagreement: I think the first sentence of my original comment here was ill-posed. It makes sense to me because it serves as a convenient pointer for the type of “religion” espoused by a significant proportion of people which involves “belief” and “faith” and does not actually contain any differences in anticipated experience from a non-religious position. However, given only the original sentence it does not mean much. And even with elaboration it is pretty much going to be tautological. As to my second post I expect that contemplating that particular “counterfactual” is going to be along the lines of considering the “counterfactual” under which 2+2=5 which I do not anticipate being a particularly enlightening discussion based on what I’ve already read on the subject.