I put this discussion on the DC boards.
Semantics, not apologetics.
I'm going try one more time to explain my beef. There is a difference between describing something and defining it. Let's go back to when all swans we had ever seen were white. Whiteness was a property that every swan that we had ever seen had, nevertheless, it was not a defining property of swans. At least, when we found black birds that were structurally similar to swans, we called them black swans, as opposed to inventing a new word for swans.
If, on the other hand, whiteness had been part of the definition of swans, then being white would be one of things that would have to be there if we were going to call something a swan. We would have said "yep, that bird looks like a swan, but it's not white, so it's not as swan. Before we found black ones, we thought of whiteness as a universal but not a DEFINING property of swans, and that is why we were able to accept the idea that those silly black birds were swans, as opposed to something else.
Further, a definition has the job of allowing everyone in the linguistic community to determine whether someone the thing defined is present or not. So, for example, if you define atheism as the belief that the proposition "God does not exist" is true, then we know who is an atheist based on whether or not someone holds that belief.
Now it seems to me a requirement to take the OTF that the person has faith. That means we need some way of deciding who has faith and who does not have faith, and this way has to be available to people of all persuasions. That is what a definition does.
For example, you believe that God does not exist. However, you can't make nonexistence part of the definition of God, and this would be so even if the case for atheism were overwhelming. Similarly, if you define faith as an irrational leap over the probabilities, then you are going to get people like me saying "By that definition , I have no faith." This is not a result that the OTF advocate wants. Even if you think faith is always irrational, and that the OTF shows this, defining faith as irrational is a bad idea which undermines the OTF.
This has very limited apologetic significance, since you can still maintain that all faith is irrational while at the same time absorbing my point.
This is a blog to discuss philosophy, chess, politics, C. S. Lewis, or whatever it is that I'm in the mood to discuss.
Showing posts with label outsider test. Show all posts
Showing posts with label outsider test. Show all posts
Monday, April 02, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Arguments that Don't Mix: Loftus Edition
It occurs to me that Loftus's attempt to define faith as necessarily irrational, and his OTF, can't be combined.
I take it one of the things I have to decide whether I am a candidate for the outsider test for faith is to decide whether not I am a person of faith. According to this definition of faith, I would have to conclude that I have no faith whatsoever. I used to use the word "faith" to describe some of my beliefs, but on this analysis, apparently I have been misusing the word. At least, I don't do this knowingly. There are no beliefs that I have, of which I would say that the evidence made the denial of what I believe more likely than what I believe.
I take it one of the things I have to decide whether I am a candidate for the outsider test for faith is to decide whether not I am a person of faith. According to this definition of faith, I would have to conclude that I have no faith whatsoever. I used to use the word "faith" to describe some of my beliefs, but on this analysis, apparently I have been misusing the word. At least, I don't do this knowingly. There are no beliefs that I have, of which I would say that the evidence made the denial of what I believe more likely than what I believe.
If I don't have any faith, what that means is, of course, that it would be pointless for me to take the Outsider Test for Faith. If you define faith this way, the only conclusion I can reach is that I don't have any faith, and so have no business taking the test, since I have no faith to test.
The only people who are candidates for the test are fideists, and those guys are, ex hypothesi, content with irrationality. If the OTF is designed to show that their beliefs are irrational, it is kicking an open door, and it surely won't convince them of anything they don't already know.
So, you have to choose, John. Either give up on the OTF, or stop developing these definitions of faith. Your arguments don't mix.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
A dialogue with Articulett on Debunking Christianity
A: Think of a religion that you think of as harmful or cult-like-- Think of how you see that religion. Do you think members of those faiths could benefit from understanding how you (an outsider to that faith) see their faith? Do you think of your non-belief in that faith as being subject to the OTF as well? If not, why do you think non-belief in your religion does?
V: If there is an Outsider Test that works, then it has to work for all propositions. My belief that thetans do not exist would have to be subject to it, but I am not terribly worried.
A: Aren't all babies born without supernatural beliefs until cultures indoctrinate them? --hence non-belief is the default position!
V: Are you kidding? Babies don't make a natural-supernatural distinction, so it's not the case that they start by filtering out beliefs on the grounds that they involve the supernatural, until Mommy and Daddy take them to Sunday School.
A: Do you have a better method for getting people to look objectively at their supernatural beliefs?
V: People should scrutinize all their beliefs. If you believe that a Miracle Diet formula will make you lose weight, that belief should be questioned, even though the makers of the formula are not literally claiming that it works via supernatural causation.
A: If not, why should anyone care that a religionist thinks the OTF is "epistemologically flawed"?
V: Good epistemology is good epistemology, and bad epistemology is bad epistemology. Whether the person doing the epistemology is a believer or an unbeliever is irrelevant. But, again, you're not listening. I said that the OTF is flawed only on some construals.
A: You have a vested interest in protecting your faith; you imagine your salvation hinges upon doing so. Moreover, you think "faith is good" and that your god hands out extreme punishments to doubters.
V: This is a world-class example of circumstantial ad hominem. It is also a straw man. I've said over and over again that I'm an inclusivist with universalist sympathies.If I became a nonbeliever, and it turned out that Christianity was true after all, I wouldn't be automatically damned. Why do you insist on putting words into the mouths of Christians?
A: I think you are fine with believers in other faiths using it... you just don't want to think about the implications it has on your own faith. It's your faith that is "epistemelogically flawed", Victor. You believe in a god who demands that you believe in the right unbelievable story or be punished forever. Moreover you are told this god is good and that you must worship him. This makes your belief as flawed as a Muslim's-- more flawed even... they don't need to try and make sense of a 3-in-1 god or pretend that believing in such a being is monotheistic!
V: I think everyone should consider the positions they hold from perspectives outside their own. That goes for Christians, atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, Scientologists, Muslims, Republicans, and Democrats.
V: If there is an Outsider Test that works, then it has to work for all propositions. My belief that thetans do not exist would have to be subject to it, but I am not terribly worried.
A: Aren't all babies born without supernatural beliefs until cultures indoctrinate them? --hence non-belief is the default position!
V: Are you kidding? Babies don't make a natural-supernatural distinction, so it's not the case that they start by filtering out beliefs on the grounds that they involve the supernatural, until Mommy and Daddy take them to Sunday School.
A: Do you have a better method for getting people to look objectively at their supernatural beliefs?
V: People should scrutinize all their beliefs. If you believe that a Miracle Diet formula will make you lose weight, that belief should be questioned, even though the makers of the formula are not literally claiming that it works via supernatural causation.
A: If not, why should anyone care that a religionist thinks the OTF is "epistemologically flawed"?
V: Good epistemology is good epistemology, and bad epistemology is bad epistemology. Whether the person doing the epistemology is a believer or an unbeliever is irrelevant. But, again, you're not listening. I said that the OTF is flawed only on some construals.
A: You have a vested interest in protecting your faith; you imagine your salvation hinges upon doing so. Moreover, you think "faith is good" and that your god hands out extreme punishments to doubters.
V: This is a world-class example of circumstantial ad hominem. It is also a straw man. I've said over and over again that I'm an inclusivist with universalist sympathies.If I became a nonbeliever, and it turned out that Christianity was true after all, I wouldn't be automatically damned. Why do you insist on putting words into the mouths of Christians?
A: I think you are fine with believers in other faiths using it... you just don't want to think about the implications it has on your own faith. It's your faith that is "epistemelogically flawed", Victor. You believe in a god who demands that you believe in the right unbelievable story or be punished forever. Moreover you are told this god is good and that you must worship him. This makes your belief as flawed as a Muslim's-- more flawed even... they don't need to try and make sense of a 3-in-1 god or pretend that believing in such a being is monotheistic!
V: I think everyone should consider the positions they hold from perspectives outside their own. That goes for Christians, atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, Scientologists, Muslims, Republicans, and Democrats.
R D Miksa's blog on taking over the outsider test for faith
Here is the blog. Miksa argues that the OTF, properly interpreted, supports theism, supernaturalism, and intelligent design.
The central issue surrounding the OTF is whether Loftus is justified in putting nonbelief in a special, default category, or whether it is just one more position on the intellectual map, as it were. That's what the Outsider Perspective is supposed to be about. Otherwise I can go outside of Christianity by taking an Islamic perspective, or outside of Buddhism by taking a Christian perspective. Or I get get outside the atheist perspective by taking a Christian point of view. But there is no question of getting completely outside, in other words, off the intellectual map entirely. You can go outside of here by going there, but you are still going to be somewhere. Wherever you go, there you are.
On the other hand, Loftus isn't just talking about getting outside of where you are to start from somewhere else to see what happens as a thought experiment. Rather, he thinks that the modern scientistic nonbeliever's position just is the Outsider Perspective, and as such it deserves a default status. Unless a religious view can justify itself to someone who adopts that perspective, then it ought not to be believed. But there is no corresponding evidential requirement that falls upon the atheist. One is only justified in getting inside a religious position unless you can justify yourself to The Outsider (with or without the hat).
My criticisms amount to the claim that it's a fudge to put the nonbeliever in that kind of privileged position.
The central issue surrounding the OTF is whether Loftus is justified in putting nonbelief in a special, default category, or whether it is just one more position on the intellectual map, as it were. That's what the Outsider Perspective is supposed to be about. Otherwise I can go outside of Christianity by taking an Islamic perspective, or outside of Buddhism by taking a Christian perspective. Or I get get outside the atheist perspective by taking a Christian point of view. But there is no question of getting completely outside, in other words, off the intellectual map entirely. You can go outside of here by going there, but you are still going to be somewhere. Wherever you go, there you are.
On the other hand, Loftus isn't just talking about getting outside of where you are to start from somewhere else to see what happens as a thought experiment. Rather, he thinks that the modern scientistic nonbeliever's position just is the Outsider Perspective, and as such it deserves a default status. Unless a religious view can justify itself to someone who adopts that perspective, then it ought not to be believed. But there is no corresponding evidential requirement that falls upon the atheist. One is only justified in getting inside a religious position unless you can justify yourself to The Outsider (with or without the hat).
My criticisms amount to the claim that it's a fudge to put the nonbeliever in that kind of privileged position.
Labels:
John Loftus,
outsider test,
the outsider test
Saturday, November 05, 2011
outsider tests (lower case) versus The Outsider Test (TM)
Actually, the underlying idea of the OTF is perfectly legitimate, in that, it is frequently useful to, as a thought experiment, imagine oneself as having started with a different perspective from that which you have in fact started. This is a point that I have argued many times. Where it goes wrong is when Loftus says that to *really* take the outsider test you have to take the perspective of an outsider like himself, a modern, science-oriented materialist. But there are many was of being outside of orthodox Christianity besides being outside of it that way, so why privilege that position? Why consider the results you get from that position to be authoritative or objective?
In short, anyone who thinks seriously takes many outsider tests, but what is questionable is when it is suggested that there is The Outsider Test (TM), the results of which are definitive for the rationality of one's belief. Also, I have argued that directing outsider tests to religious faith, and not to beliefs in general, is question-begging.
In short, anyone who thinks seriously takes many outsider tests, but what is questionable is when it is suggested that there is The Outsider Test (TM), the results of which are definitive for the rationality of one's belief. Also, I have argued that directing outsider tests to religious faith, and not to beliefs in general, is question-begging.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
The SLTF
Jesse, I think there's an important point, and that is, "Who's the outsider?" Now, if we take the word "outsider" as meaning, well, someone who's not in fact committed to any particular revealed religion, then Lewis even when he had knelt and prayed, was an outsider, since he did not accept any special revelation at that time, and did not do so for a couple of years.
However, when Loftus actually describes the so-called "outsider," it is an outsider Loftus has created in his own image. For him to acknowledge that a person's religion has passed the OTF, there has to be evidence that at least ought to persuade someone like himself; someone who accepts a broadly scientistic epistemology, etc. But you can be an outsider without subscribing to Loftus's brand of scientism. So it's not an Outsider Test for Faith, it's the SLTF, the Satisfy Loftus (or Articulett, or Papalinton, etc. etc., etc.) test for faith. But if that's the case, why is faith unreasonable if it can't be proven to the satisfaction of its harshest critics? Why are they in the catbird seat, determining the rationality of all beliefs?
However, when Loftus actually describes the so-called "outsider," it is an outsider Loftus has created in his own image. For him to acknowledge that a person's religion has passed the OTF, there has to be evidence that at least ought to persuade someone like himself; someone who accepts a broadly scientistic epistemology, etc. But you can be an outsider without subscribing to Loftus's brand of scientism. So it's not an Outsider Test for Faith, it's the SLTF, the Satisfy Loftus (or Articulett, or Papalinton, etc. etc., etc.) test for faith. But if that's the case, why is faith unreasonable if it can't be proven to the satisfaction of its harshest critics? Why are they in the catbird seat, determining the rationality of all beliefs?
Friday, August 05, 2011
Jesse Parrish and Thrasymachus: Two atheist critics of the OTF
Parrish's critique is linked from the title. Thrasymachus' is linked here.
Now, I'm not going to make the argument that since even atheists criticize the OTF, there's got to be something wrong with it. Arguments have to be discussed on their merits. However, I do like these critiques.
Now, I'm not going to make the argument that since even atheists criticize the OTF, there's got to be something wrong with it. Arguments have to be discussed on their merits. However, I do like these critiques.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
The OTF, and ECREE
The OTF is couched in terms of avoiding DOUBLE standards. It seems pretty clear to me that you can avoid double standards and be a Christian. Christianity has, at least as I evaluate the evidence, some evidential advantages over other revelation claims. So the complaint has to be that a person is using the wrong standard, but that's what's at issue.
Extraordinariness is not strictly quantifiable, and has to be assessed from within some existing belief system. If someone thinks that natural theology is reasonably successful, and that we have
reason to believe in God, then we have to ask if it is possible that God has spoken. Or is he just mutely watching? If it seems likely that God has spoken, we have to find the best candidate as to where and how he might have spoken.
It's a cumulative case on both sides. I am skeptical of the existence of "default positions," however. Whatever position you start from, there is an initial "double standard" of sorts, in that you can't reasonably expect someone to put what they don't believe on an epistemic par with what they do believe. You can do that as a thought experiment, (If I came in believing X, what would I believe about it now), but it cannot be normative unless you have good evidence that your current beliefs were arrived at in a completely non-truth-tracking way. Just seeing the weakness of how we reason isn't enough to reach that radical a conclusion. To put what we don't believe on an epistemic par with what we do, it has to be shown that our thinking processes that led us to believe what we do are completely non-truth-tracking.
No, I would not put levitation and bike-riding in the same category evidentially, since I have different priors for each. However belief in both has to follow some general rule.
I see prior as starting points in thinking, which have to be worked from, not justified. We're stuck with them. If we trade them in for others, we don't help ourselves epistemically. If the evidence is good enough, it should overcome whatever your initial predispositions, if we keep thinking and paying attention. However, some of us will be dead before our errors are defeated.
Monday, June 27, 2011
The Martian Test for Faith
The contemporary atheist is a creature of Christian culture. They have already interacted with it and responded in one particular way. So I don't think of them as outsiders. A real outsider would have to be from another planet.
Mars, maybe?
Mars, maybe?
An Exchange between Matt Flannagan and John Loftus (actually Paul Bennett)
This is a combox exchange between Loftus, whose comments are in italics, and Matt Flannagan, whose comments are not italicized.
I think the OTF is seen to fail in the mind of those who are afraid of the implications.
This is an assertion backed up by an ad hominen attack on people who disagree with them.
This is an assertion backed up by an ad hominen attack on people who disagree with them.
For those interested in the truth, it’s a good test. Believers clearly set a low bar for evidence when it comes to their own supernatural beliefs, but they raise the bar when it comes to other supernatural beliefs and no evidence is sufficient when it comes to any claim which negates their beliefs. The OTF reveals this bias.
Actually I think it does the opposite, sceptics demand that Christians meet an inordinate burden of proof by proposing the OTF, but then they fail to apply this proof in other contexts, particular to premises they use to argue against Gods existence. I note this in the review.
The believer wants to think that the atheists rejects their beliefs for bad reasons, when in fact, atheists reject the believers beliefs for the same reasons believers reject other religions and superstitious claims.
This is an assertion which has been refuted already on this blog. But note you make it without any proof. If I held to the OTF I should be sceptical of this claim until you prove it.
Obviously, people believe in the magical things they do because of indoctrination, confusing correlation with causation, and confirmation bias. Christians can see this readily when they consider Greek Myths or reincarnationists– but their indoctrination blinds them in regards to their own, equally unsupportable supernatural beliefs. If they are indoctrinated well enough, they become too afraid of thinking outside the faith– afraid that they’ll suffer forever if they do so.
Again we see an assertion, involving a string of genetic and ad hominen fallacies, prefaced with the word “obviously”
If you want to insist on the OTF, I should be sceptical of these claims until you prove them. Where is the proof?
Again we see an assertion, involving a string of genetic and ad hominen fallacies, prefaced with the word “obviously”
If you want to insist on the OTF, I should be sceptical of these claims until you prove them. Where is the proof?
Every cult member can tell you why they are sure their religion is the really true truth– but none can tell you what evidence would get them to believe a competing claim– that’s because no evidence would or could suffice. They are brainwashed. Christians can see it with the Muslims and the Scientologists, but their indoctrination makes sure they deny it in themselves. The OTF illustrates this, however– which is why we see so much kicking and screaming around it.
Again another assertion about others being “brain washed” with you expect everyone to accept without proof. Keep the examples coming your proving my point nicely
The OTF is just a tool to help a believer counteract the biases of his indoctrination, so that instead of endlessly trying to prop us his belief, he’s got a brain more willing to consider whether his supernatural beliefs are any more likely to be true than the supernatural beliefs he rejects (such as reincarnation). As far as the empirical evidence is concerned, the answer is “no”.
I note here you limit your claims to supernatural beliefs and insist on empirical evidence. Why? This is an epistemological claim. If the OTF is true I should be a sceptical outsider to claims like this so my default position is to deny it, until you prove it.
I note the only proof you give is an assertion.
Again, thanks for proving my point.
I note here you limit your claims to supernatural beliefs and insist on empirical evidence. Why? This is an epistemological claim. If the OTF is true I should be a sceptical outsider to claims like this so my default position is to deny it, until you prove it.
I note the only proof you give is an assertion.
Again, thanks for proving my point.
”I understand why this would bother someone more interested in keeping the faith rather than understanding what is real. Magician, James Randi points out that the easiest people to fool are those who are certain they cannot be fooled. I know I can be fooled. And I don’t feel like fooling myself any more. I think those against the OTF are those with a strong interest in continuing to fool themselves.
Interesting, again we have the OTF defended by an ad hominen. This is apparently the only proof needed when it’s your beliefs that are under discussion. When people question the epistemic stance you adopt, you respond by saying they “have an interest in fooling themselves” and dismiss it.
Perhaps you’ll answer the question I put to you last time we discussed this. Take the claim “women and men have equal rights” or “all human beings have equal dignity and worth” can you prove this with empirical evidence? If I had been brought up in another culture I would probably not believe this. So the OTF requires me to be sceptical of it until someone proves it with empirical evidence alone.
I take it you provide empirical evidence for this claim that meets the standard you demand before on believes in theism, then you need to explain to me why you adopt a different standard here?
Labels:
John Loftus,
Matt Flannagan,
outsider test,
the outsider test
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Madeline Flannagan reviews The Christian Delusion
No surprise, the discussion ends up focusing on the OTF. HT: Steve Hays.
Labels:
John Loftus,
outsider test,
the outsider test
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
A Debunking Christianity exchange on (you guessed it), the OTF
This discussion, on the whole, went rather better than most I have had over there, even though it begins with typical Loftus-style bluster. The following is, I think, my most interesting contribution, although there are other interesting discussion-tracks.
Labels:
John Loftus,
outsider test,
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Tom Talbott on the Outsider Test for Faith
Thomas Talbott has written a detailed critique of the Outsider Test for faith. I've been long convinced that the discussion of the OTF needs to move out of the blogosphere and into the realm of peer-reviewed journals. If Tom can be prevailed upon to submit this paper to such a journal, hopefully this can begin. It is the first essay on his list of "other writings."
Labels:
John Loftus,
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Thomas Talbott
Thursday, February 10, 2011
David Marshall on why Christianity passes the OTF, and Secular Humanism may fail
Something tells me, deep down in the pit of my stomach, the Loftus isn't going to buy this.
Labels:
John Loftus,
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Monday, December 27, 2010
More science and the OTF
I think I'm getting a little more engagement from John that usual.
1) You are avoiding the question of what would constitute "me" in some other culture, and what would make that relevant.
2) Do most people accept the religion of the culture they are raised in if they become philosophy majors and deliberately expose themselves to opposing viewpoints? Now different people have different sorts of intellectual needs, and I would not want to denigrate other types of people, but given the kinds of friends and professors I encountered throughout my education, as well as all the people I read, I think I gave the atheist side plenty of opportunity to convince me had the case been there. Given the kind of upbringing I had, the people I spent time with, the major I chose, and just the intensity with which I pursued questions, I don't think it was a done deal that I would end up a Christian. I have imagined a few scenarios where I might have ended up as an unbeliever.
3) Attribution bias? Well, one of the things I learned in the course of my intellectual development was that there are limits on how rational a person can be, and I have discovered that it is difficult to be rational. I'm aware of the dangers of wishful thinking; that's one of the things that has made it harder, not easier, to believe. All I can say is that I think I have tried harder and longer to be rational about religion than virtually anyone I know. With all that, of course, I could have failed. I believe that imagining what we would believe if we started in a different place from where we started is a good heuristic. Granting special authority and "default" status to some viewpoint other than one's own is, in my view, epistemically unwarranted.
4) I'm not committing the "infallibility or falsehood" dichotomy, since obviously I think neither that I am infallible nor that my beliefs are false. What you seem to imply is that since you went through what you describe as such a wrenching conversion experience, you had to be sure that you right, and therefore your opponents simply must be wrong. Or so you sound at times. Otherwise, why MUST you explain away all your opponents? Why not just say that people have come to different places trying the best they could to be rational, and in some sense agree to disagree. (Which doesn't mean I expect you to stop thinking that I am wrong).
5) I am NOT railing against the sciences, I am railing against bad extrapolations from the sciences. Nothing proved in science necessarily entails that Christianity is false.
5a) The NAS statistic is the one atheists love to quote, but you have to go from science to unbelief, not the scientific community to unbelief. The scientific community was once almost exclusively Christian, and yet skeptics argue that the overall thrust of science proved the undoing of religion even though the scientists were Christians. But you can't help yourself to that argument, and then argue that now, the religious persuasions of a particular group of scientists proves that science and religion are in conflict. Even if science itself provides an antidote to bias in the long run, scientists thinking about the field of religion are just as subject to bias as the rest of us mortals.
5b) I've never been a YEC, and I don't believe I hold any belief about any scientific matter based on a perceived conflict with a literal reading of Scripture. I didn't learn fundamentalism from my mother. She wasn't a fundamentalist.
6) You are ignoring my distinction between narrow science and broad science. Even within science, different methods are proper to different subject matter. Are there certain modes of reasoning proper to metaphysics that are might not be acceptable within any science in particular.
7) I did mention that modern science arose on Christianity's watch, and I knew you would come back with Carrier's research claiming that Christianity can't claim any credit for science. Of course I've seen Carrier's case, (which is all over Infidels and was even part of his critique of my book), but I'm not fully persuaded. But, of course, you chose to ignore my main argument that unless theism or something like it is true, then science is not so much as possible, because rational inference would not be possible. All beliefs would be, in the final analysis, production of non-rational causes. This is the argument from reason, as you know. Carrier replied to that, too but I think my reply in C. S. Lewis as a Philosopher, along with Darek Barefoot's reply on Infidels, constitutes an effective answer to Carrier on the AFR.
8) The "kick against the goads" rhetoric about the OTF is getting old and silly. The fact is I have acknowledge a legitimacy to using the heuristic of thinking from some standpoint other than one's own. What I have denied is that there is an authoritative "outside" perspective, or that these sociological considerations warrant making nonbelief the "default" position.
1) You are avoiding the question of what would constitute "me" in some other culture, and what would make that relevant.
2) Do most people accept the religion of the culture they are raised in if they become philosophy majors and deliberately expose themselves to opposing viewpoints? Now different people have different sorts of intellectual needs, and I would not want to denigrate other types of people, but given the kinds of friends and professors I encountered throughout my education, as well as all the people I read, I think I gave the atheist side plenty of opportunity to convince me had the case been there. Given the kind of upbringing I had, the people I spent time with, the major I chose, and just the intensity with which I pursued questions, I don't think it was a done deal that I would end up a Christian. I have imagined a few scenarios where I might have ended up as an unbeliever.
3) Attribution bias? Well, one of the things I learned in the course of my intellectual development was that there are limits on how rational a person can be, and I have discovered that it is difficult to be rational. I'm aware of the dangers of wishful thinking; that's one of the things that has made it harder, not easier, to believe. All I can say is that I think I have tried harder and longer to be rational about religion than virtually anyone I know. With all that, of course, I could have failed. I believe that imagining what we would believe if we started in a different place from where we started is a good heuristic. Granting special authority and "default" status to some viewpoint other than one's own is, in my view, epistemically unwarranted.
4) I'm not committing the "infallibility or falsehood" dichotomy, since obviously I think neither that I am infallible nor that my beliefs are false. What you seem to imply is that since you went through what you describe as such a wrenching conversion experience, you had to be sure that you right, and therefore your opponents simply must be wrong. Or so you sound at times. Otherwise, why MUST you explain away all your opponents? Why not just say that people have come to different places trying the best they could to be rational, and in some sense agree to disagree. (Which doesn't mean I expect you to stop thinking that I am wrong).
5) I am NOT railing against the sciences, I am railing against bad extrapolations from the sciences. Nothing proved in science necessarily entails that Christianity is false.
5a) The NAS statistic is the one atheists love to quote, but you have to go from science to unbelief, not the scientific community to unbelief. The scientific community was once almost exclusively Christian, and yet skeptics argue that the overall thrust of science proved the undoing of religion even though the scientists were Christians. But you can't help yourself to that argument, and then argue that now, the religious persuasions of a particular group of scientists proves that science and religion are in conflict. Even if science itself provides an antidote to bias in the long run, scientists thinking about the field of religion are just as subject to bias as the rest of us mortals.
5b) I've never been a YEC, and I don't believe I hold any belief about any scientific matter based on a perceived conflict with a literal reading of Scripture. I didn't learn fundamentalism from my mother. She wasn't a fundamentalist.
6) You are ignoring my distinction between narrow science and broad science. Even within science, different methods are proper to different subject matter. Are there certain modes of reasoning proper to metaphysics that are might not be acceptable within any science in particular.
7) I did mention that modern science arose on Christianity's watch, and I knew you would come back with Carrier's research claiming that Christianity can't claim any credit for science. Of course I've seen Carrier's case, (which is all over Infidels and was even part of his critique of my book), but I'm not fully persuaded. But, of course, you chose to ignore my main argument that unless theism or something like it is true, then science is not so much as possible, because rational inference would not be possible. All beliefs would be, in the final analysis, production of non-rational causes. This is the argument from reason, as you know. Carrier replied to that, too but I think my reply in C. S. Lewis as a Philosopher, along with Darek Barefoot's reply on Infidels, constitutes an effective answer to Carrier on the AFR.
8) The "kick against the goads" rhetoric about the OTF is getting old and silly. The fact is I have acknowledge a legitimacy to using the heuristic of thinking from some standpoint other than one's own. What I have denied is that there is an authoritative "outside" perspective, or that these sociological considerations warrant making nonbelief the "default" position.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Contingency, Science, and the OTF
No John, you're missing the point. What we have is a failure to communicate. In my view the question of who "I" would be in another culture is difficult to raise meaningfully because not only does the religion of choice change, but also the freedom to question one's beliefs differs. So saying that I would be a Muslim in a Saudi society doesn't mean a whole lot because the freedom to so much as question Islam is not granted. What makes someone in a Muslim or a Mormon culture me? Possible world semantics has the problem of identifying either persons or counterparts across possible worlds. When people make statements like "If you had been born in Saudi Arabia you would have been a Muslim," we need an account of the counterpart relation.
My next point is that I have been influenced by a lot of other things besides my upbringing. My home church exposed me both to liberal Methodist theology and conservative evangelicalism. So it was not monolithic; it was a mixed bag. Lots of people grow up Christians and leave the fold, sometimes because of unbelief, and sometimes just they drift away without really thinking very hard about it. I was NEVER an unquestioning believer and I always took anything that seemed to me like brainwashing very ill. So the meaningful question is whether someone coming out of the Saudi Islamic community who questioned their religion as much as I did would come out as a Muslim. And the answer seems to me to be that a questioner like me would not be welcome in the Saudi community. I would be forced either to stop questioning or leave the fold. So there is no Saudi counterpart to me in any sense that is meaningful to the justification of my religious beliefs. My religious beliefs were, right from age 18, consistently exposed to criticisms from, I won't say all sides, but by many sides. It's anybody's guess how I would have evaluated the evidence had my ideas been formed in some other intellectually open environment.
So I never said that I would still be a Christian philosopher like myself if I had grown up in the Saudi culture. You are reading me in a delusional way, I hate to say it, when you say that.
You also missed my point about bad experiences. The point is that there are contingencies in all of our backgrounds, and if contingencies are sufficient to call beliefs into question, then your beliefs would be just as questionable as mine. But contingencies, in and of themselves, are not sufficient to call beliefs into question.
So you, thinking your way from inside Christianity, assuming that it was true, concluded that it was all false. Fine, I am sure this was a serious intellectual effort. However, nothing guarantees that our intellectual journey will reach the right destination. It isn't humanly possible to consider all the relevant parameters. We call it as we see it, but nothing guarantees our infallibility, even if we end up crossing the aisle. Otherwise, Antony Flew's journey to theism or C. S. Lewis's journey from atheism to theism to Christianity would be proof that theism and Christianity are true. The idea that you MUST have reasoned correctly because you left the fold, and were motivated not to leave just doesn't hold water.
But then you say, well, what we have to do is to go by the sciences. But whose sciences? The science of Francis Collins, or the science of P. Z. Myers? The science of John Polkinghorne, or the science of Victor Stenger? The science of Michael Behe, or the science of Richard Dawkins? Questions of religion are not strictly speaking scientific questions (unless one operates with an expanded notion of science, an idea that I am not unfriendly to, actually, but other people scream bloody murder when I suggest it), so you have to extrapolate from the sciences in order to get any kind of results. And then you have to ask questions as to why matter exists, or, further, why science exists. I have argued that if "scientific" naturalism is true, then it is not possibly true that humans literally add, subtract, multiply, divide, and take square roots of numbers. Hence if scientific naturalism is true, then science itself cannot exist. As I see it, the Christian world-view is the scientific world-view. Modern science was founded on the Christian watch, and presupposes a rational universe and rational minds to understand that universe that we would have no reason to believe in unless there is a God.
The fact that you think that my recitation of something that is pretty much standard philosophy of science is some kind of tirade against science shows that you don't understand the very science that you claim to believe in so strongly. Richard Swinburne's philosophical theology is the most comprehensive attempt to bring scientific thinking to religious questions, but I know you don't like his conclusions. You see, when you say "follow science," what I fear is that a "heads I win, tails you lose" game is being set up. If I point to something in science that supports religion, you say "That's not science." If you point to something in science that refutes religion, then it is science.
My next point is that I have been influenced by a lot of other things besides my upbringing. My home church exposed me both to liberal Methodist theology and conservative evangelicalism. So it was not monolithic; it was a mixed bag. Lots of people grow up Christians and leave the fold, sometimes because of unbelief, and sometimes just they drift away without really thinking very hard about it. I was NEVER an unquestioning believer and I always took anything that seemed to me like brainwashing very ill. So the meaningful question is whether someone coming out of the Saudi Islamic community who questioned their religion as much as I did would come out as a Muslim. And the answer seems to me to be that a questioner like me would not be welcome in the Saudi community. I would be forced either to stop questioning or leave the fold. So there is no Saudi counterpart to me in any sense that is meaningful to the justification of my religious beliefs. My religious beliefs were, right from age 18, consistently exposed to criticisms from, I won't say all sides, but by many sides. It's anybody's guess how I would have evaluated the evidence had my ideas been formed in some other intellectually open environment.
So I never said that I would still be a Christian philosopher like myself if I had grown up in the Saudi culture. You are reading me in a delusional way, I hate to say it, when you say that.
You also missed my point about bad experiences. The point is that there are contingencies in all of our backgrounds, and if contingencies are sufficient to call beliefs into question, then your beliefs would be just as questionable as mine. But contingencies, in and of themselves, are not sufficient to call beliefs into question.
So you, thinking your way from inside Christianity, assuming that it was true, concluded that it was all false. Fine, I am sure this was a serious intellectual effort. However, nothing guarantees that our intellectual journey will reach the right destination. It isn't humanly possible to consider all the relevant parameters. We call it as we see it, but nothing guarantees our infallibility, even if we end up crossing the aisle. Otherwise, Antony Flew's journey to theism or C. S. Lewis's journey from atheism to theism to Christianity would be proof that theism and Christianity are true. The idea that you MUST have reasoned correctly because you left the fold, and were motivated not to leave just doesn't hold water.
But then you say, well, what we have to do is to go by the sciences. But whose sciences? The science of Francis Collins, or the science of P. Z. Myers? The science of John Polkinghorne, or the science of Victor Stenger? The science of Michael Behe, or the science of Richard Dawkins? Questions of religion are not strictly speaking scientific questions (unless one operates with an expanded notion of science, an idea that I am not unfriendly to, actually, but other people scream bloody murder when I suggest it), so you have to extrapolate from the sciences in order to get any kind of results. And then you have to ask questions as to why matter exists, or, further, why science exists. I have argued that if "scientific" naturalism is true, then it is not possibly true that humans literally add, subtract, multiply, divide, and take square roots of numbers. Hence if scientific naturalism is true, then science itself cannot exist. As I see it, the Christian world-view is the scientific world-view. Modern science was founded on the Christian watch, and presupposes a rational universe and rational minds to understand that universe that we would have no reason to believe in unless there is a God.
The fact that you think that my recitation of something that is pretty much standard philosophy of science is some kind of tirade against science shows that you don't understand the very science that you claim to believe in so strongly. Richard Swinburne's philosophical theology is the most comprehensive attempt to bring scientific thinking to religious questions, but I know you don't like his conclusions. You see, when you say "follow science," what I fear is that a "heads I win, tails you lose" game is being set up. If I point to something in science that supports religion, you say "That's not science." If you point to something in science that refutes religion, then it is science.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Lucky Me
First of all, let's get something clear. There can be truth-favoring accidents of birth. I have a much better chance of knowing the truths of higher mathematics if I was born into a country that would permit me to get a college-level education that I would have if I were born to a poor family in Africa who has no access to education.
Second, had my parents not encouraged my inquisitive mind I would probably have never gone into philosophy, and would not have had the sort of mental life I have now. Could I say to an atheist "Look, you have to abandon your beliefs and take an outsider test. Your family could have made you more of a intellectual sheep than you are now, in which case you'd be blindly following some cult leader instead of rejecting religion altogether." Of course not. He would just say, "Well, thank evolution I have a passion for asking questions, and am not a sheeple."
I would think that if careful intellectual inquiry is supposed to play a role in coming to know whatever is true about God, then an open and pluralistic intellectual atmosphere makes it more likely that you will discover what is true than an atmosphere where people are brainwashed and inhibited from questioning whatever their parents or the state tells them. If that is so, then I have had some advantages over someone who grew up in Saudi Arabia, who would have had Islam shoved down my throat, or in Russia, where I would have had atheism shoved down my throat, than I have had in the atmosphere in which I have lived. So if someone says "If you had been born in Saudi Arabia you would have been a Muslim," one response is to say "Thank God I wasn't," but the other response is to say that I find it hard to believe that my Saudi counterpart would have had the opportunity to scrutinize his religious beliefs the way that I have had. So, I consider myself to have been the recipient of some good epistemic luck, for which I am grateful.
I'm not even sure a meaningful counterpart to me can exist in Saudi Arabia. But if any sense can be made of that statement, then it really doesn't give me much cause for epistemic anxiety. Whoever this epistemic counterpart might be, I am epistemically privileged compared to him, in much the way that we Americans are economically priviliged in comparison to the Third World.
Second, had my parents not encouraged my inquisitive mind I would probably have never gone into philosophy, and would not have had the sort of mental life I have now. Could I say to an atheist "Look, you have to abandon your beliefs and take an outsider test. Your family could have made you more of a intellectual sheep than you are now, in which case you'd be blindly following some cult leader instead of rejecting religion altogether." Of course not. He would just say, "Well, thank evolution I have a passion for asking questions, and am not a sheeple."
I would think that if careful intellectual inquiry is supposed to play a role in coming to know whatever is true about God, then an open and pluralistic intellectual atmosphere makes it more likely that you will discover what is true than an atmosphere where people are brainwashed and inhibited from questioning whatever their parents or the state tells them. If that is so, then I have had some advantages over someone who grew up in Saudi Arabia, who would have had Islam shoved down my throat, or in Russia, where I would have had atheism shoved down my throat, than I have had in the atmosphere in which I have lived. So if someone says "If you had been born in Saudi Arabia you would have been a Muslim," one response is to say "Thank God I wasn't," but the other response is to say that I find it hard to believe that my Saudi counterpart would have had the opportunity to scrutinize his religious beliefs the way that I have had. So, I consider myself to have been the recipient of some good epistemic luck, for which I am grateful.
I'm not even sure a meaningful counterpart to me can exist in Saudi Arabia. But if any sense can be made of that statement, then it really doesn't give me much cause for epistemic anxiety. Whoever this epistemic counterpart might be, I am epistemically privileged compared to him, in much the way that we Americans are economically priviliged in comparison to the Third World.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
If I had been born in Saudi Arabia, would I have been a Muslim? Hell, no!
From a comment by Chris on the Secular Outpost:
A naturalist/atheist views all of the above in an entirely consistent manner: none of it is believable. Theists do not view it consistently. They view one set of beliefs as true; the others are not. Yet there's no difference in the nature of the evidence - none whatsoever. If Victor, with his same mindset, had been born and raised in Saudi Arabia, he would almost certainly be a Muslim, and he would dismiss all accounts of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, while maintaining that he was still a prophet and a divine being who would return to judge the world. Assuming I also maintained my mindset when I was 'reborn' in Saudi Arabia, then I would still be a naturalist/atheist (albeit a very circumspect one), and I would still dismiss the miracle-evidentiary value of the Koran, Bible, Diamond Sutra, etc., just as I do today. So a theist would accept a similar 'type' of evidence, but a completely different 'set,' whereas a naturalist would maintain a consistent view of both type and set no matter what culture he/she was born into. That seems like a more defensible position.
This is an assertion, typical of the outsider test rhetoric, that I would, if I had the same intellectual dispositions, be a Muslim if I were born in the Islamic world. The person saying this, of course, doesn't know me at all. First, this simply denigrates all of the efforts that I made since I grew up to evaluate the reasons for and against being a Christian. The evidence bases for the two religions are different, and I think someone of my education and scholarship would have noticed the difference. In fact, when I looked at comparison of the evidence bases for these religions a few weeks back I commented that if the evidence bases were reversed between the two religions I would have some serious doubts. (That particular site probably overstates the case for Christianity, but there does seem to me to be a real difference).
Second, the Islamic community seems to have actively discouraged philosophy since the Middle Ages. You have figures like Avicenna, Averroes, and al-Ghazali, but after that I don't see much contribution to philosophy. So the likelihood of the Islamic community producing a philosopher like myself doesn't seem as likely as the Christian community producing a philosopher like myself.
Third, in thinking about my intellectual development, I was always a pretty severe questioner. I can imagine Christian settings that would have severely tempted me to leave the fold, particularly those who suppressed questions. I experienced some of that (I remember attending a conference by Bill Gothard where he told people that if they wanted to take a philosophy course that would be OK, but don't major in it), but I was able to find Christians of considerable intellect, equal to anything I saw in the atheists I knew, who were not afraid of questions. C. S. Lewis helped a lot, my friends Bob Prokop (a commentator here) and the late Joe Sheffer were helpful when I was an undergraduate, my seminary professor Don Saliers, who helped me find my own voice in dealing with the issue of Catholicism (Don is most famous for being the father of Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls), Christian grad students at Illinois, and the philosophers at the Society of Christian Philosophers' conference all helped to provide an the intellectual community that allowed me to become a Christian philosopher. I think a more question-suppressive intellectual atmosphere might have induced me to leave the fold. I find it funny that Loftus uses the word "brainwashed" about me, because the ABSENCE of brainwashing tactics amongst these people made it much easier to sustain my faith. I think of it as God taking care of my intellectual needs throughout my life, but if you don't think there is a God, you probably are going to have to describe it differently.
If I had grown up in a Christian community that preached a lot of hell-fire, if I had asked a lot of questions and been told to stop asking them, and if looking in a more liberal direction I had found nothing but a lot of Bultmannian existentializing, I think there is a good chance that I would have left the fold.
But the main thing I want to note is that in order to have a real equivalent of me in some other religion, you have to have a question-friendly atmosphere. There are Christian groups don't even provide that. I don't think I would have found that in Saudi Arabia, since the predominant form of Islam there is reactionary. When Salman Rushdie wrote Satanic Verses, which as I understand it is a novelized account of the giving of the Qur'an to Muhammad which diverges from orthodox Islam, the mullahs in Iran put out a contract on him. I don't recall a hit being ordered by the Vatican on Dan Brown after the Da Vinci Code. I'm not saying that an Islamic equivalent of myself is impossible, but I think if I had been a Muslim I either would have become a Muslim fideist and probably never gone into philosophy, or I would have left the fold.
A naturalist/atheist views all of the above in an entirely consistent manner: none of it is believable. Theists do not view it consistently. They view one set of beliefs as true; the others are not. Yet there's no difference in the nature of the evidence - none whatsoever. If Victor, with his same mindset, had been born and raised in Saudi Arabia, he would almost certainly be a Muslim, and he would dismiss all accounts of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, while maintaining that he was still a prophet and a divine being who would return to judge the world. Assuming I also maintained my mindset when I was 'reborn' in Saudi Arabia, then I would still be a naturalist/atheist (albeit a very circumspect one), and I would still dismiss the miracle-evidentiary value of the Koran, Bible, Diamond Sutra, etc., just as I do today. So a theist would accept a similar 'type' of evidence, but a completely different 'set,' whereas a naturalist would maintain a consistent view of both type and set no matter what culture he/she was born into. That seems like a more defensible position.
This is an assertion, typical of the outsider test rhetoric, that I would, if I had the same intellectual dispositions, be a Muslim if I were born in the Islamic world. The person saying this, of course, doesn't know me at all. First, this simply denigrates all of the efforts that I made since I grew up to evaluate the reasons for and against being a Christian. The evidence bases for the two religions are different, and I think someone of my education and scholarship would have noticed the difference. In fact, when I looked at comparison of the evidence bases for these religions a few weeks back I commented that if the evidence bases were reversed between the two religions I would have some serious doubts. (That particular site probably overstates the case for Christianity, but there does seem to me to be a real difference).
Second, the Islamic community seems to have actively discouraged philosophy since the Middle Ages. You have figures like Avicenna, Averroes, and al-Ghazali, but after that I don't see much contribution to philosophy. So the likelihood of the Islamic community producing a philosopher like myself doesn't seem as likely as the Christian community producing a philosopher like myself.
Third, in thinking about my intellectual development, I was always a pretty severe questioner. I can imagine Christian settings that would have severely tempted me to leave the fold, particularly those who suppressed questions. I experienced some of that (I remember attending a conference by Bill Gothard where he told people that if they wanted to take a philosophy course that would be OK, but don't major in it), but I was able to find Christians of considerable intellect, equal to anything I saw in the atheists I knew, who were not afraid of questions. C. S. Lewis helped a lot, my friends Bob Prokop (a commentator here) and the late Joe Sheffer were helpful when I was an undergraduate, my seminary professor Don Saliers, who helped me find my own voice in dealing with the issue of Catholicism (Don is most famous for being the father of Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls), Christian grad students at Illinois, and the philosophers at the Society of Christian Philosophers' conference all helped to provide an the intellectual community that allowed me to become a Christian philosopher. I think a more question-suppressive intellectual atmosphere might have induced me to leave the fold. I find it funny that Loftus uses the word "brainwashed" about me, because the ABSENCE of brainwashing tactics amongst these people made it much easier to sustain my faith. I think of it as God taking care of my intellectual needs throughout my life, but if you don't think there is a God, you probably are going to have to describe it differently.
If I had grown up in a Christian community that preached a lot of hell-fire, if I had asked a lot of questions and been told to stop asking them, and if looking in a more liberal direction I had found nothing but a lot of Bultmannian existentializing, I think there is a good chance that I would have left the fold.
But the main thing I want to note is that in order to have a real equivalent of me in some other religion, you have to have a question-friendly atmosphere. There are Christian groups don't even provide that. I don't think I would have found that in Saudi Arabia, since the predominant form of Islam there is reactionary. When Salman Rushdie wrote Satanic Verses, which as I understand it is a novelized account of the giving of the Qur'an to Muhammad which diverges from orthodox Islam, the mullahs in Iran put out a contract on him. I don't recall a hit being ordered by the Vatican on Dan Brown after the Da Vinci Code. I'm not saying that an Islamic equivalent of myself is impossible, but I think if I had been a Muslim I either would have become a Muslim fideist and probably never gone into philosophy, or I would have left the fold.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Deconversion, Skepticism, and the intellectual Mount Olympus
As someone who abandoned Christian soteriological exclusivism in 1974, and as someone who has at least universalist sympathies, I can assure you that the fear of hell is not keeping me in the fold. Conversions and deconversions are difficult and life-changing experiences. It's funny, when I talk about Lewis's experience as the most reluctant convert in all England, (you know the passage in Surprised by Joy, surely), people point out quite correctly that however thought-out that experience might have been, it provides no guarantee that he reasoned correctly. And the same observation must be made of your leaving the fold. (Of course, some people go further and say that Lewis was really converted by wishful thinking despite the fact that he said he was accepting something he very much did NOT prefer to be true. And of course, I could use exactly the same tactic on your deconversion.)
I don't think I have a naive view of human cognitive powers. What the sciences tell us is that it is very difficult to be rational. What I deny is that there is some position of "skepticism" that is some intellectual Mount Olympus from which we can escape our tendency toward bias. Leaving the fold doesn't cure it. Getting an Outsider Test diploma doesn't cure it. What we have to do is make a lifelong effort to think well, and that remains difficult whether you are a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, or an atheist.
One way of expressing my doubts about the outsider test is just to deny that there really is an outside. There is none. Wherever you go, there you are. We can imagine ourselves having different intellectual predispositions from what we have and then looking at the evidence to see if we would be persuaded by that evidence if we were differently predisposed. That's an interesting and worthwhile procedure, but hardly an experimentum crucis for religious beliefs.
I don't think you even understand the function of the Bayesian models that I use. I would never say, in any non-relative sense, that the Resurrection is 94% probable. I think that rationality is a matter of adjusting our current beliefs based on evidence, and so the Bayesian model just tells you what to do in the light of evidence. It allows me to "map" how people with different fundamental beliefs can be influenced by evidence and can adjust our beliefs in the light of that evidence. It also explains how reasonable people can disagree about religion without either side being open to charges of irrationality. That doesn't look like a game to me. You have a better model? Tell me about it.
I've always been aware of human irrationality. It's just that when atheists tell me that it all lies on the side of the believer, I consider THAT to be psychologically naive.
I don't think I have a naive view of human cognitive powers. What the sciences tell us is that it is very difficult to be rational. What I deny is that there is some position of "skepticism" that is some intellectual Mount Olympus from which we can escape our tendency toward bias. Leaving the fold doesn't cure it. Getting an Outsider Test diploma doesn't cure it. What we have to do is make a lifelong effort to think well, and that remains difficult whether you are a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, or an atheist.
One way of expressing my doubts about the outsider test is just to deny that there really is an outside. There is none. Wherever you go, there you are. We can imagine ourselves having different intellectual predispositions from what we have and then looking at the evidence to see if we would be persuaded by that evidence if we were differently predisposed. That's an interesting and worthwhile procedure, but hardly an experimentum crucis for religious beliefs.
I don't think you even understand the function of the Bayesian models that I use. I would never say, in any non-relative sense, that the Resurrection is 94% probable. I think that rationality is a matter of adjusting our current beliefs based on evidence, and so the Bayesian model just tells you what to do in the light of evidence. It allows me to "map" how people with different fundamental beliefs can be influenced by evidence and can adjust our beliefs in the light of that evidence. It also explains how reasonable people can disagree about religion without either side being open to charges of irrationality. That doesn't look like a game to me. You have a better model? Tell me about it.
I've always been aware of human irrationality. It's just that when atheists tell me that it all lies on the side of the believer, I consider THAT to be psychologically naive.
Labels:
atheism,
John Loftus,
outsider test,
the outsider test,
theism
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Have you taken the Outsider Test for Patriotism?
Apparently one of the big issues that will be important in the next campaign is American Exceptionalism. Does Obama really believe that America is the greatest nation on God's green earth. Meanwhile, over at Debunking America, the question has been raised as to whether people like Romney, Palin, and Huckabee have taken the Outsider Test for Patriotism.
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