The curious case of Sarah Salviander.

[Anomalocaris]

There is a lunatic fringe in any group classified by education, theoretical intelligence, and upbringing. Being outliers their actions can be animated by a wide range of considerations, psychologies, and private motivations. The suffices to say that whatever caused them to say what they would, the bulk of the field hewing closer to the professional standards of the field regard them with pity mixed with appropriate disdain.   The fact that evangelicals need to harp on the existence of a lunatic fringe in the community of those with PhDs in astrophysics, as if it were some new revelation, tells just how crudely opportunistic and contemptuous of the full perspective on facts these movements are, and how utterly brain dead and gullible their followers had always been.

[Lek]

It's very simple.  She, like many other intelligent and successful people, experienced God and believed.  That's how it works.

[AceBoogie]

I think even highly intelligent people are susceptible to believing in certain things if they allow themselves to be convinced to think of certain things in a certain way. Even the most hard nosed skeptic, if following a false line of evidence or false line of thinking that they believe to be true, can end up believing in a complete falsehood.

Especially if someone allows another person to convince them to think of something the way they think of it... If it's like one person in your life constantly trying to get you to see something a certain way and you kind of want to see their point it can be easy to be deceived.

It is very interesting but I think the explanation is simpler than some might assume.

[Catholic_Lady]

Why is it a curious case for an attractive, intelligent, successful person to be a theist? I know plenty of them.

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I don't see why it's so hard to fathom that someone else may believe differently than yourself without being dumb and ugly lol.

[Jehanne]

I think even highly intelligent people are susceptible to believing in certain things if they allow themselves to be convinced to think of certain things in a certain way. Even the most hard nosed skeptic, if following a false line of evidence or false line of thinking that they believe to be true, can end up believing in a complete falsehood.

Especially if someone allows another person to convince them to think of something the way they think of it... If it's like one person in your life constantly trying to get you to see something a certain way and you kind of want to see their point it can be easy to be deceived.

It is very interesting but I think the explanation is simpler than some might assume.

If you read her website some more, she says that she was heavily influenced by Dr. Gerald Schroeder, a PhD graduate in physics from MIT (whom Professor Antony Flew was also heavily influenced by).  In one of his books (The Science of God...), Dr. Schroeder says that kinetic energy is proportional to an object's velocity and also equivocates mass with weight:

https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/11...-with.html

For any individual with any degree in physics (even an AS) to make the above claim that kinetic energy is proportional to an object's velocity is beyond absurd.

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Why is it a curious case for an attractive, intelligent, successful person to be a theist? I know plenty of them.

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I don't see why it's so hard to fathom that someone else may believe differently than yourself without being dumb and ugly lol.

She's not ugly, far from it.  There's nothing wrong with her physical appearance.  As far as her clothing goes, she was wearing a long feminine blouse with a long feminine skirt, completely in line with her conservative religious views.  Also, considering the fact that she lives in Texas (a conservative state, both politically and religiously), her appearance would be typical of many women in that state, the majority of whom do not wear pants to work, church, etc.

[Anomalocaris]

It's very simple.  She, like many other intelligent and successful people, experienced God and believed.  That's how it works.

Yeah, when that happened, she simply wasn't really intelligent enough, or was not emotionally balanced enough to prevent her wishes from ruling her thinking.

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Why is it a curious case for an attractive, intelligent, successful person to be a theist? I know plenty of them.

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I don't see why it's so hard to fathom that someone else may believe differently than yourself without being dumb and ugly lol.

Yeah, but real education leading to PhD in astrophysics normally weeds out people who are merely ordinarily intelligent in the still-susceptible-to-theism sense.

[robvalue]

Right, she could have have had some really weird experience, and then interpreted it as being part of the mythology that surrounded her since birth. We're all soaked in it, even those of us not raised religiously.

This seems to be a fairly common scenario. I've had plenty of weird experiences, which I could have interpreted many ways, but which I've written off as most likely my brain playing tricks on me.

[chimp3]

When she makes claims about reality she will have to provide evidence not just WLC style word games. I briefly looked through some of her writings at Six Day Science. The site name says it all.

[RoadRunner79]

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She's intelligent, attractive, highly educated, successful, gainfully employed, and happily married, the epitome of modern success in the Western World:



She's said that her Mom & Dad were ex-Catholics (like me), who (de)converted to atheism; she said that she was raised as an atheist, but while in college, discovered some sort of generic theism, and after falling in love with a Christian man from Finland who was raised in an atheistic home, she gave her life to Jesus.  Now, she has two websites:

https://sarahsalviander.com/

And, especially:

https://sixdayscience.com/

Two seeks ago I sent an email to her "six days" science website after noticing links to WLC's RF site:

Professor Salviander,

I am surprised that you, an accomplished astrophysicist, would link to William Lane Craig's website, a man who called the number zero "problematic":

https://youtu.be/fEw8VzzXcjE?t=4666

But, first, listen to Craig pontificate on transfinite arithmetic, a subject that he has never studied formally.  (By the way, your critic, "James", has studied that topic.)  In fact, as far as I can tell, Craig, who began his academic carrier at Wheaton College as a communications major, has never even taken a course in first-semester calculus.  I do not know of any professional physicist who was completely self-taught; do you?  In fact, the "word on the street" is that it takes 10 years from freshman year to PhD status, on average.  I doubt that someone like Professor Steven Weinberg, who, no doubt, you know first-hand would find the number "zero" so problematic, with the many renormalizations that take place within QFT.  But, why trust someone like Weinberg, when you can trust Craig; after all, is not mathematics, per Craig, proof of God's existence, the number zero notwithstanding?

By the way, Sir Peter Millican, a philosophy professor at Oxford, now atheist, was himself a former believer.  And, so, the "religious string" pulls both ways.

Best,

"Me"

I never received a reply and didn't really expect one.  "James", by the way, is an ex-Christian, now atheist, who was critical of Sarah's conversion to Christianity.  His blog site "Reasonably Faithless" can be found online; if you read Sarah's post, she has a bit of a temper to her disposition!

Apparently, some other "fire breathing atheists" from UT (the home of Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg) have converted, also:

http://www.facultycommons.com/exploding-myths/

Kind of reminds me of Dan Barker, but in reverse.  What's going on with these people?

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Why are you so surprised?   You might pontificate, that there are more stories out there like this, then you may be aware of.

Also, just for consideration, but the message you sent may come off as trolling....  You are not really asking a question or making any argument against anything that what said in the context of the site or their position, but bringing up something unrelated about another.  (not to mention, that I think that the clip and argument about Craig, are lacking in the principle of charity, to understand what he is actually putting forth).

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

[Catholic_Lady]

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She's intelligent, attractive, highly educated, successful, gainfully employed, and happily married, the epitome of modern success in the Western World:



She's said that her Mom & Dad were ex-Catholics (like me), who (de)converted to atheism; she said that she was raised as an atheist, but while in college, discovered some sort of generic theism, and after falling in love with a Christian man from Finland who was raised in an atheistic home, she gave her life to Jesus.  Now, she has two websites:

https://sarahsalviander.com/

And, especially:

https://sixdayscience.com/

Two seeks ago I sent an email to her "six days" science website after noticing links to WLC's RF site:



I never received a reply and didn't really expect one.  "James", by the way, is an ex-Christian, now atheist, who was critical of Sarah's conversion to Christianity.  His blog site "Reasonably Faithless" can be found online; if you read Sarah's post, she has a bit of a temper to her disposition!

Apparently, some other "fire breathing atheists" from UT (the home of Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg) have converted, also:

http://www.facultycommons.com/exploding-myths/

Kind of reminds me of Dan Barker, but in reverse.  What's going on with these people?

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Why are you so surprised?   You might pontificate, that there are more stories out there like this, then you may be aware of.

Also, just for consideration, but the message you sent may come off as trolling....  You are not really asking a question or making any argument against anything that what said in the context of the site or their position, but bringing up something unrelated about another.  (not to mention, that I think that the clip and argument about Craig, are lacking in the principle of charity, to understand what he is actually putting forth).

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

I don't think he's trolling. I think he is genuinely dumbfounded that anyone who doesn't think like him could possibly be anything other than ugly, stupid, and a loser in life. There's a word for that.