I just meant that there are sound, rational reasons for the initial reply to an extravagant claim being “someone would have noticed”.
When it comes to trying to deconvert someone my experience is that the chance of an on the spot concession is 0. If your arguments are good they’ll sink in later and leave a small crack in the wall.
I’ve never intentionally converted anyone to being an atheist but I did unintentionally help convert the woman who later became my wife. We never talked much about it and I never said anything that really hit home with her all of a sudden. It was more the fact that she spent enough time with me to realize someone could be an atheist and be completely “ok”—I don’t know if that possibility had even occurred to her before. Once it had, some nascent doubts sprang back up and she had no compelling reason to bat them down.
I wish I could be more specific but I really didn’t pay attention to it. I care about people’s (even my family’s) religious beliefs or lack thereof about as much as I care about which sports franchises they are fans of - that is not at all.
I just meant that there are sound, rational reasons for the initial reply to an extravagant claim being “someone would have noticed”.
When it comes to trying to deconvert someone my experience is that the chance of an on the spot concession is 0. If your arguments are good they’ll sink in later and leave a small crack in the wall.
I’ve never intentionally converted anyone to being an atheist but I did unintentionally help convert the woman who later became my wife. We never talked much about it and I never said anything that really hit home with her all of a sudden. It was more the fact that she spent enough time with me to realize someone could be an atheist and be completely “ok”—I don’t know if that possibility had even occurred to her before. Once it had, some nascent doubts sprang back up and she had no compelling reason to bat them down.
I wish I could be more specific but I really didn’t pay attention to it. I care about people’s (even my family’s) religious beliefs or lack thereof about as much as I care about which sports franchises they are fans of - that is not at all.