Yosarian2 comments on No, Really, I've Deceived Myself - Less Wrong

55 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 March 2009 11:29PM

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Comment author: Yosarian2 21 January 2014 12:49:57AM *  4 points [-]

One thing that makes Christianity such a powerful meme is that it has specifically developed defenses that seem designed to counter this kind of argument. They're actually written right into the Bible.

Matthew 4:7-

" 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’[c]”

7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’[d]”"

Basically, the exact kind of test you're talking about, an attempt to falsify the hypothesis that God exists and will protect you, is something that you are explicitly forbidden from trying to do in the Bible. Even the act of suggesting it as a course of action is associated with the Devil.

The fact that Christianity has such well-developed internal defenses against being challenged is one reason it's been such an effective meme. Also, perhaps more interesting, I would say that the fact that it was felt that they needed to do so proves that even at the time the Bible was written there were rationalists (or at least proto-rationalists) challenging religion on rational grounds, and the early religious leaders felt the need to counter those kinds of arguments.