HT: Bob Prokop
"The next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it. And a particular point of it is that the popular critics of Christianity are not really outside it. They are on a debatable ground, in every sense of the term. They are doubtful in their very doubts. Their criticism has taken on a curious tone; as of a random and illiterate heckling."
"I do seriously recommend the imaginative effort of conceiving the Twelve Apostles as Chinamen. In other words, I recommend [one] try to do as much justice to Christian saints as if they were Pagan sages. ... When we do make this imaginative effort to see the whole thing from the outside, we find that it really looks like what is traditionally said about it inside. ... It is exactly when we see the Christian Church from afar ... that we see that it is really the Church of Christ. To put it shortly, the moment we are really impartial about it, we know why people are partial to it."
The test and the answer key
JWL: You must seek to justify what you consider the facts apart from faith. Now you might not like me engaging you in this argument after you recognize the validity of the OTF all you want to, but if you truly wish to be an outsider to your own faith then to evaluate it properly an outsider like me can be of extreme value to you.
So, let me be of service. ;-)
VR: No. That's where you start turning the Outsider Test for Faith into an Insider Test for Infidels. The OTF is a thought experiment, nothing more. Just because you invented the term for the test (the idea has always been around in some form or another), doesn't mean that you have the answer key in your desk drawer. I'm not convinced that there is any rational obligation to make one's faith depend on passing it. The argument you present in your book for why religious beliefs must pass the OTF is full of holes.
In one sense, you really never do get outside. When you go from theism to atheism, atheism becomes inside and theism becomes outside. I think the presuppositionalists have this much right; I don't think there is any real neutral ground.
But it is healthy to ask the question "What if I had come into all of this with a different experiences and background than what I in fact have?" But that's a question I have been asking since I was 18, and it's part of why I majored in philosophy. That's part of the good faith effort to be intellectually honest.
In particular, I don't believe in the Feldman-type argument where we have to stop holding positions because our epistemic peers disagree. I think that kind of thing stultifies thought, and as I understand the philosophy of science, I think it would stultify science.
I take it that cognitive science shows us that rationality is difficult. Of course, I've been arguing that rationality isn't even possible if naturalism is true, an argument you somehow don't feel any need to even respond to. But setting that aside, if it is difficult to be rational, then the OTF, or the deconversion the OTF is supposed to engender, is not going to make people automatically rational. It is one tool among many that we might use to help us become more rational, nothing more.
There is an appeal to intellectual honesty and fairness which is legitimate, but not an overwhelming argument against Christianity. What gets loaded on top of it, though, is what concerns me: a lot of unrealistic and questionable epistemology, a lot of highly questionable psychologizing, and an evaluation of the available evidence which is very different from mine. In fact, the claim that Christianity can't pass the test is backed up by statements that strike me as demonstratably false, such as the claim that Christians operate with a double standard when they, for example, reject Islam and accept Christianity. They appear for all the world to be submitting both religions to the same test, and claiming that Christianity comes out better.
And part of what you are calling faith, particularly an individual person's religious experience, is relevant evidence for people to use in evaluating their beliefs.
That's what I object to: The Outsider Test for Faith Test, based on how closely your answers fit Loftus's answer key.
So, let me be of service. ;-)
VR: No. That's where you start turning the Outsider Test for Faith into an Insider Test for Infidels. The OTF is a thought experiment, nothing more. Just because you invented the term for the test (the idea has always been around in some form or another), doesn't mean that you have the answer key in your desk drawer. I'm not convinced that there is any rational obligation to make one's faith depend on passing it. The argument you present in your book for why religious beliefs must pass the OTF is full of holes.
In one sense, you really never do get outside. When you go from theism to atheism, atheism becomes inside and theism becomes outside. I think the presuppositionalists have this much right; I don't think there is any real neutral ground.
But it is healthy to ask the question "What if I had come into all of this with a different experiences and background than what I in fact have?" But that's a question I have been asking since I was 18, and it's part of why I majored in philosophy. That's part of the good faith effort to be intellectually honest.
In particular, I don't believe in the Feldman-type argument where we have to stop holding positions because our epistemic peers disagree. I think that kind of thing stultifies thought, and as I understand the philosophy of science, I think it would stultify science.
I take it that cognitive science shows us that rationality is difficult. Of course, I've been arguing that rationality isn't even possible if naturalism is true, an argument you somehow don't feel any need to even respond to. But setting that aside, if it is difficult to be rational, then the OTF, or the deconversion the OTF is supposed to engender, is not going to make people automatically rational. It is one tool among many that we might use to help us become more rational, nothing more.
There is an appeal to intellectual honesty and fairness which is legitimate, but not an overwhelming argument against Christianity. What gets loaded on top of it, though, is what concerns me: a lot of unrealistic and questionable epistemology, a lot of highly questionable psychologizing, and an evaluation of the available evidence which is very different from mine. In fact, the claim that Christianity can't pass the test is backed up by statements that strike me as demonstratably false, such as the claim that Christians operate with a double standard when they, for example, reject Islam and accept Christianity. They appear for all the world to be submitting both religions to the same test, and claiming that Christianity comes out better.
And part of what you are calling faith, particularly an individual person's religious experience, is relevant evidence for people to use in evaluating their beliefs.
That's what I object to: The Outsider Test for Faith Test, based on how closely your answers fit Loftus's answer key.
Moral subjectivism and the value of rationality
What's interesting to me here is the extent to which commitment to rationality is linked to a belief in moral objectivity. A believer in objective morality can argue that everyone ought to do one's best to believe what is true, even when believing the truth is emotionally costly. Whatever is legitimate in the Outsider Test for Faith appeals to this kind of commitment. But does this commitment make sense if moral relativism or moral subjectivism is presupposed?
Bertrand Russell wrote, concerning fideistic believers:
There is something pusillanimous and sniveling about this point of view, that makes me scarcely able to consider it with patience. To refuse to face facts merely because they are unpleasant is considered the mark of a weak character, except in the sphere of religion. I do not see how it can be ignoble to yield to the tyranny of fear in all terrestrial matters, but noble and virtuous to do the same things where God and the future life are concerned.
But, if there's nothing objective about moral values, then there's no objective reason why I shouldn't be "pusillanimous and sniveling" if it keeps me emotionally comfortable. The appeal to intellectual honesty presupposes a commitment to the value of truth, which is going to be a subjective matter unless we accept objective moral values.
Bertrand Russell wrote, concerning fideistic believers:
There is something pusillanimous and sniveling about this point of view, that makes me scarcely able to consider it with patience. To refuse to face facts merely because they are unpleasant is considered the mark of a weak character, except in the sphere of religion. I do not see how it can be ignoble to yield to the tyranny of fear in all terrestrial matters, but noble and virtuous to do the same things where God and the future life are concerned.
But, if there's nothing objective about moral values, then there's no objective reason why I shouldn't be "pusillanimous and sniveling" if it keeps me emotionally comfortable. The appeal to intellectual honesty presupposes a commitment to the value of truth, which is going to be a subjective matter unless we accept objective moral values.
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