The curious case of Sarah Salviander.

[Jehanne]

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?

[AkiraTheViking]

In the case of Sarah, the D was too good.

[robvalue]

That is just really weird. I wonder what's going on in her head.

I don't understand how any atheist sceptic could ever be tricked into theism/religion. I guess she isn't a sceptic, or is on the make. All it takes to "be a Christian" is to say you're one, after all.

However, you could always find the teachings of Jesus to be worth adhering to for some reason, regardless of the supernatural parts of the religion. I don't know why you'd also need to worship him in order to take his good advice though. People don't do that with other sources.

Edit: I just looked at that second website. Holy shit. She sounds like a totally crazy person. It feels like she's been ruthlessly brainwashed somehow. But maybe it's all a show, for the $€£¥.

[Jehanne]

It is interesting and incredible that an academic like Dr. Salviander would align herself with someone like Dr. Craig, who quotes the BGV Theorem ad nauseam, yet he says (see the above YouTube link) that "infinity minus infinity is undefined" (it's not, Dr. Craig, it's indeterminate), rejecting proofs (like the BGV Theorem, except, without the assumptions of that theorem) that prove, absolutely, that there are "infinities within infinities":

https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...ent-sizes/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity#Infinity_symbol

This should prove, once and for all, that Craig is a lying dope; it is incredible that a published PhD astrophysicist could be duped by him.

[Edwardo Piet]

Shes well educated, I'll give you. High IQ, I'll give you.

Intelligent and attractive? Meh I dunno.

[Jehanne]

Shes well educated, I'll give you. High IQ, I'll give you.

Intelligent and attractive? Meh I dunno.

I'm no Donald Trump, and so, I am not going to comment on her physical appearance any further (although, as I said, I think that she is a physically attractive woman).  In any case, she and her husband are happily married, and in the end, that's what is important for them as a couple.

Having said that, I was shocked to see that she aligns her scientific views with those of Craig's!

[Edwardo Piet]

Well going by the OP pic she looks like a skull covered by pale skin with a wig in a hospital gown. Not what I would call attractive. And I don't think IQ or education indicates intelligence. But I do think believing crazy shit indicates unintelligence.

This is what I call attractive:

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[Jehanne]

The above post is off-topic!  And, so, as the author of the OP, I would ask that we return to the original topic at hand, that is, how an educated astrophysicist could go from atheism (or, so, she professed) to evangelical Christianity.

Also, if you could reduce the size of your image, that would be grand!

[Edwardo Piet]

It wasn't off topic you said she was attractive and intelligent so I was just addressing that.

I'll stick the images in hide tags.

[Jehanne]

It wasn't off topic you said she was attractive and intelligent so I was just addressing that.

I'll stick the images in hide tags.

That was not the major premise of my post, but just to clarify once again, I am stupefied as to how a professional PhD astrophysicist could make the journey from atheism to evangelical Christianity, and especially, to link to William Lane Craig's website from hers.  And, so, that, principally, is what I am looking to discuss here.  And, as I emphasized in my OP, she is not the only one at UT Austin to do so!