Sunday, January 21, 2007

The Outsider-Insider Test

"So let me propose something I call The Outsider Test: If you were born in Saudi Arabia, you would be a Muslim right now, say it isn't so? That is a cold hard fact. Dare you deny it? Since this is so, or at least 99% so, then the proper method to evaluate your religious beliefs is with a healthy measure of skepticism. Test your beliefs as if you were an outsider to the faith you are evaluating. If your faith stands up under muster, then you can have your faith. If not, abandon it, for any God who requires you to believe correctly when we have this extremely strong tendency to believe what we were born into, surely should make the correct faith pass the outsider test. If your faith cannot do this, then the God of your faith is not worthy of being worshipped." -John Loftus

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/02/outsider-test.html

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Adding Insult to Injury

"That we are formed and malformed by our environments from birth on is bad enough. It is made worse by those who want to see us as nothing but products of environment. These reductionists of course make an exception in their own cases. It is as if they say to us: "We are able to discern truth, but you are not. What we say expresses our insight, but what you say only expresses your conditioning." That is the injustice of the psychologizer." - Bill Vallicella

http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1169254167.shtml

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"- When once asked if Darwinism was a meme, Richard Dawkins denied that it was. Memes, of course, were an attempt to explain away that pesky intentionality and free will in human affairs, by casting us as deterministically controlled hosts being passively invaded and taken over by parasites, rather than agents that deliberate over the information we receive to form ideas. But he couldn't stomach applying the idea to himself. He, of course, was an autonomous, shining beacon of reason, who arrived at his ideas through powers of rational deliberation that nobody else has. Unlike all the unenlightened, his beliefs are most certainly not memes!

- I'm reminded also of those people who's first and only inclination is look for ways to blame the plights of everyone in the world on Western Civilization in general, and America in particular. I once had a conversation with such a person, who was stretching to explain to me how all the lousy choices made by those in the Arab world over the years traced back to, and were caused by, something Americans did, and were therefore our fault. I asked him, why, then, was it our fault? Isn't the implication of what he said that Americans are themselves victims of circumstance, and that our blame can be shifted to something else as well? Why should the buck stop with us?

The false empathy displayed by such people towards the plights of others is really a form of snobbery. As they see it, their own people with whom they are familiar (which includes themselves) are intelligent, deliberating moral agents like themselves, capable of making choices that have an effect on the world, while everyone else is just a poor, pale shadow cast and determined by their own egos." - "The Deuce" a commentor on Vallicella's blog

http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1169254167.shtml#8127

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Who agrees with Loftus and who with Vallicella and "The Deuce?"

7 comments:

  1. But.. but.. your argument doesn't make any sense...

    You say that what people believe is based on where they live. You then say:

    "Since this is so, or at least 99% so, then the proper method to evaluate your religious beliefs is with a healthy measure of skepticism."

    However, there is ZERO connection between what you'd just said the "since this is so".

    This is the stupidest argument I've ever heard!

    It amounts to this:

    1. If a belief is affected by your location it should be judged with skepticism
    2. Belief X is affected by your location
    3. Therefore Belief x should be judged with skepticism

    How about this:
    2. Belief in the equality is women is affected by your location
    3. Therefore the equality of women should be viewed with skepticism

    2. Belief that Jews deserve to live is affected by your location
    3. Therefore the right to life of Jews should be viewed with skepticism

    2. Belief that Jews don't deserve to live is affected by your location
    3. Therefore the right to life of Jews should be given the benefit of the doubt

    2. Belief that Christianity is false is affected by your location
    3. Therefore we should be skeptical of all claims against Christianity

    Loftus, you would need to *prove that a belief should be believed by everyone* or else your argument won't get off the ground.

    The Bible often refers to nations being blessed as groups, and in the OT God almost entirely interacted with ONE ethnic group...

    Look, your argument doesn't make sense and it's obvious to everybody else but (or maybe including...) you.

    It's sooo bad Loftus, it makes me cringe!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. LOL, John.

    I think your cowboy hat is on too tight.

    You'd be so much more respected by atheists like me if you'd admit that this "test" of yours is a ridiculously bad argument.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi John,

    Actually you've gone on record admitting that "the outsider test" equally applies against all people.

    You wrote,

    "And my particular attack on religious faiths is to consider how we gained out presuppositions in the first place. We do so because of when and where we were born. Go here and scroll down to the Outsider Test, to see yourself. This is the biggest background factor of all when it comes to religious faiths..when and where we were born. So basically you're using an accident of geography to adopt your view of logic, and that's it."

    To which James Anderson replied,

    "If that's the case, then so are you and all your secularist colleagues. Nice work! By your own lights, you've just transformed all the "logical argumentation" of Debunking Christianity into little more than a public display of Western atheistic introspection. :)"

    To which you said,

    "Yes, I'll admit this."

    The above exchange can be found here:

    http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2006/08/exbeliever-on-argument-from-reason.html

    And so John, you've admitted that your outsider test commits you to relativism. But then you think you can transcend this. This is what Vallicella and The Deuce point out. So, it looks like they're right after all. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. John,

    I have no clue who "Hallquist" is.

    As far as Carrier's statement goes, if the "logic is insurmountable" you wouldn't mind putting it in a formal argument, would you?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Actually I think Loftus is the one who has no idea who *Hallquist* is, as Loftus is the one who misspelled his name.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi John,

    Your argument is a non-sequitur.

    You've done nothing to tie the consequent to the antecedent.

    It's like if I argued:

    If I brush my hair, I'll get dates tonight. I brushed my hair. Therefore, I'll get dates tonight.

    There's no connection between hair brushing and date getting.

    Same with your conditional.

    As I said, John, the argument is ridiculously bad.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Listen Anonymous,

    I stayed up all night on Dec. 14, 1998 thinking this up one night over a few dozen beers. If Richard Dawkins says the logic is insurmountable, well, what does your opinion matter? I mean Richard Dawkins is a genius. And at least I attach my name to my arguements, not like some little whiners here at T-boob...

    ReplyDelete