Regarding the good Reverend, we stand on the shoulders of giants that came after him, and are lucky enough to find ourselves in a more tolerant environment. And Laplace independently went further than Bayes not that much later, and had no need of that hypothesis.

Yes, I'm being snide, but this sounds a bit too self-congratulating. Are we really in a position to be all but saying "these specific beliefs are a prerequisite for posting"?

Did komponisto say that? I read "expect" as descriptive, not normative.