John Loftus, his Outsider Test for something or other, and Skepticism

Posted on 09/04/12 104 Comments

A year ago I wrote a series of essays criticizing The End of Christianity, a book edited by John W. Loftus. A couple days ago I suggested that he consider responding to the essays I wrote in the series relevant to his work and he obliged mere hours later. (My initial anticipation quickly dissipated when I realized that John probably should have spent a few more hours — or perhaps days — formulating his response before posting. But more on that momentarily.)

I wrote an initial response to John’s long overdue rebuttal here. In it I defended the first two points of my critique from John’s spurious response. John has sworn off commenting on blogs run by Christians so I also engaged with him on his website here. I think the exchange can be summarized by saying that John’s rebuttals were not serious and thus my initial critique is sustained.

But I didn’t quite get through John’s comments in that initial response. So now it is time for the initial response to hand the baton off to the final response. I have devoted this final essay to responding to three points, the first two on John’s beloved Outsider Test and the third on his misbegotten comments on skepticism. So let’s get started.

The Outsider Test of Faith: Bad Argument or Bald Assertion?

Anybody who has even a passing familiarity with the work of John Loftus will know that his big schtick is the so-called ”Outsider Test for Faith”. (Or “Outsider Test of Faith.” I always forget which preposition his brand uses.) Unfortunately it isn’t always clear what this “argument” is supposed to be. (If it is indeed supposed to be an “argument”. As we’ll see, it would appear that it isn’t actually an argument but rather a mere declaration. But more on that in a moment.) So I began by attempting to summarize Loftus’ Outsider Test as follows:

(1) If you are the adherent to a religion you should subject your basic metaphysical commitments to skeptical “outsider” analysis.

(2) If you do (1) you will become an atheist.

(3) Thus the person who does (1) and remains committed to their religion did not really do (1).

(4) Atheists don’t have to subject their metaphysical commitments to skeptical analysis because they already did so and that’s why they’re atheists.

In his long-awaited rebuttal to my critique Loftus takes issue with (1). Thus, he proposes the following rewrite:

(1’) If you are the adherent to a religion you should subject your basic metaphysical commitments to skeptical “outsider” analysis in the same way you do to the metaphysical commitments that you reject (I prefer the phrase “religious faiths” to “metaphysical commitments” but that’s probably just a quibble since I use that phrase myself).

Frankly, John’s addition seems redundant, so long as we understand what “skeptical ‘outsider’ analysis” means. As a result, this doesn’t even amount to a quibble.

More telling are John’s comments on two other propositions in the argument. He writes:

“When it comes to (2) and (3) these things are not actually part of the test itself. They are conclusions I think reasonable people should probably come to though.”

That’s interesting, for that seems to mean that John’s Outsider Test is described fully in (1). And that means that it isn’t an argument at all. Instead, it is simply a bald assertion, one that presumably you either accept or not. This suggests that I was being too generous by attempting to turn a mere bald assertion into an argument that might have some probative force for those who do not yet accept it.

The Outsider Test as Otiose

Next, John takes issue with my claim that Outsider Test would be rendered otiose if we’d all just follow this advice. This is what I suggested as a substitute:

“Everyone should critically introspect their basic worldview commitments with objectivity and care.”

John objects to this modest suggestion. As he says, ”The problem with this “test” of [Randal's] is that it is no test at all.” (Indeed, it isn’t a test. It’s a principle. But let’s leave that aside.) John then explains:

“Just ask any apologist for a different faith or sect within it if they have done so. They have, you see, all of them. But ask them instead to be consistent, by subjecting their own faith to the same level of skepticism they already subject the other faiths they reject, and that will get their attention. It calls for a non-double standard.”

However, John isn’t demonstrating here that the Outsider Test is necessary. Instead, what he’s demonstrating is that the apologists he refers to didn’t actually “critically introspect their basic worldview commitments with objectivity and care” as my principle advised. If they had done so, there simply would be no need for John’s test.

Let me give you an illustration. Let’s say that you buy a new computer. Later you go to another computer store and a salesman tries to sell you a microphone to go with your computer. That is like John attempting to sell his Outsider Test of Faith. And what I’m doing is pointing out that your computer already comes with a better and more versatile microphone than the one the salesman is trying to get you to buy. If people just learned how to use the microphone that’s already installed in the computer they’d never buy the substandard unit the salesman is peddling.

John Loftus on Skepticism

Next in my review I quote John as saying: “Skepticism is an adult attitude for arriving at the truth.” (13) I then commented:

Epistemologically speaking, this is a dimestore comment, the kind that you expect to hear from undergraduates who are taking their first Intro to Philosophy course and have become enamored with Descartes’ “Meditations”. But try that statement out in a graduate seminar in epistemology. To equate the pursuit of truth with skepticism alone is like rowing on only one side of the boat. A grown up approach to the pursuit of truth involves a richly nuanced balancing act between skepticism and belief, doubt and commitment.

John replies like this:

Rauser badly mischaracterizes my point. We were all raised as believers. Whatever our parents told us we believed. We didn’t know not to do so. Children are gullible people. Does the phrase, “It’s like taking candy from a baby” have any meaning at all to it? Sure it does. Skepticism is a learned attitude. That’s the point. It doesn’t come naturally. Adults should have that attitude by critically examining the basis of what they were taught on their mama’s knees about religion. Why? Precisely because all mama’s cannot be correct when they teach their children to believe mutually exclusive religions. Therefore, by virtue of religious diversity alone, skepticism is an adult attitude for arriving at the truth.

Interestingly, John’s commentary makes it clear that I didn’t mischaracterize his point. And the more he talks (or types) the cruder the picture gets. How so? Consider that John characterizes children as “gullible” for trusting credible authorities (and for the average child, their parent is indeed a credible authority as one who once wiped their bum, provides their meals, meets their needs and protects them from harm). But that does not make a child gullible. It is wholly reasonable to assent to the testimony of a credible authority. It only becomes unreasonable when the authority provides some defeater to his/her credibility. This would be the case if the authority (e.g. the parent) acted in a way that clearly discredited his testimony (e.g. acting erratically as a result of mental illness; consistently giving verifiably false testimony, etc.) or if a number of other credible authorities disputed this authority’s credibility (e.g. if all the family members had an intervention at which the child was present, and they provided evidence that the parent was a serial liar).

As I have often said, what John describes here — this fixation on skepticism without any recognition of the importance that credulity (aptitude to believe) plays in the reasonable person — is akin to rowing on only one side of the canoe. If you doubt everything then you’ll certainly end up just going in circles.

But of course John doesn’t want us to be skeptical of everything. His advice, in particular, he’d like us to believe. Too bad his own words discredit his authority.

Walter

“Frankly, John’s addition seems redundant, so long as we understand what
“skeptical ‘outsider’ analysis” means.”

Over at his blog RD Miksa argues that the Maximally Objective Outsider position should actually be deism rather than atheism or agnosticism. It’s an interesting read:

http://www.theoutsidertestforfaith.blogspot.com/2012/03/maximally-objective-outsider.html
- markpm
  
  That was quite interesting. When I started it I was like “how on earth is he going to defend this thesis?” and by the end I was like “wow, way better than I thought.” I’ll have to chew on that for a while.
Zeno

From what I’ve read
of Loftus’ interactions with his critics, it seems that engaging him is about
as profitable as engaging an inveterate young earth creationist (forgive the
comparison between these fundamentalist atheists and their religious counterparts
if it is by now trite and so obviously true as to be tiresome and uninteresting).
No matter how cogent, formidable, and lucid one’s objections to his arguments
or principles are, Loftus simply refuses to respond in a responsible fashion,
and repeats his mistakes with great vigor in the fashion of a mumpsimus. Given
that this is his modus operandi, I wonder if you are not flouting the advice
both of Nietzsche and an ancient Hebrew sage (a true consensus sapientium) by
continuing to engage him. From Nietzsche we are told the following:

“I love the valiant;
but it is not enough to wield a broadsword, one must also know against whom.
And often there is more valor when one refrains and passes by, in order to save
oneself for the worthier enemy” (from Thus Spoke Zarathustra).

And from the Hebrew
sage we are given advice about speaking within earshot of people who refuse to
be taught (Pr 23:9). But I trust that your intended audience is far more expansive
than just John Loftus, and so perhaps for their sakes the dialogue ought to
continue. Keep up the good work.
- http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
  
  Your ending is on the mark Zeno. I’m not engaging Loftus for the sake of engaging Loftus alone. Hundreds of people read his blog every day. If I critically engage him and one person is persuaded by my exchange, it was worth it.
  - R0c1
    
    If anecdotes count… This is a good plan. I found Randal’s blog via Lotus, and while I disagree with Randal about Christianity being true, I think he has shaped my thinking considerably in ways that God can use if God is out there.
    
    Today I’m subscribed to the RSS of this site and I’ve dropped the subscription to Debunking Christianity.
    - http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
      
      Yes! (Fist pump in the air.)
      - ManhattanMC
        
        Try to leave your ego out of it or you look guilty of what you’ve recently accused John of doing.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        Lighten up friend, it’s a JOKE. Indeed, it’s a self-deprecating joke. Maybe when you know me better you’ll be able to pick up the tone.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Haha.
        and the inevitable:
        
        You know what Freud said about jokes, no?
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        Well ManhattanMC, I’ll give you this: you truly are a prolific commenter.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        And I give you the same.
        
        nick
        
        Randal nice blog. I thought similarly about this OFT. I was an atheist, grew up in an atheist home. I carefully examined it and rejected it. The oft default position for atheists did not keep me in the fold. The oft test presumes one will end up a skeptic well I think not in the process of my investigation God turned up majorly. Well, that was totally unexpected and undeniable. I think your engagement with Loftus is a good thing. I disagree with him, but I like his stance he has a unique understanding of Christian belief and as a result unwittingly hone Christian arguments.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        It’s hard to take the ‘investigations’ of of someone who doesn’t understand the ‘reply’ button very seriously.
        The OFT doesn’t really ‘presume’ anything. It’s just a tool and i don’t think you understand what it is or how to use it.
R0c1

The thing is Randal, I think you agree with (what I consider) the main thrust of the outsider test, but instead of offering a steel man version you can fully support, you quibble with particular words and phrases to build a reductio.

Reminds me of the time I asked you to engage Yudkowsky’s stuff and you wrote a post that questioned his view of gamblers. Instead of reading his post charitably, you crafted an edge case where his thesis might not apply.
- http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
  
  Regarding your second paragraph, I don’t recall the incident. When you’re blogging every day you can’t recall everything. Maybe you can download the Office Jerk app, pretend I’m the Office Jerk, and throw a few staplers.
  
  (Though I must say that from what you describe, I was engaging Yudkowsky’s stuff, albeit not as you’d like.)
  
  Regarding your first paragraph, let me be clear: John’s so-called “Outsider Test” is crap, not because it asks “people of faith” to test their beliefs but because it doesn’t explicitly ask everyone to question their beliefs all the time.
  
  As I said, John’s so-called test, which is so important to his branding as an intellectual, is an unnecessary microphone for those who already have microphone capability downloaded onto their hard drive.
  - R0c1
    
    “What is meant by the word red?”
    “It’s a color.”
    “What’s a color?”
    “Well, it’s a quality things have.”
    “What’s a quality?”
    “Um…”
    
    One way to keep ourselves from getting lost in verbal mazes of abstraction is to push the conversation the other way:
    
    “What is meant by the word red?”
    “It’s what you will probably see when you look at a firetruck or a stop sign or blood or… Hey look over there! That’s red.”
    
    John’s so called test follows this pattern, I think. Maybe we could make a tighter philosophical argument with the outsider test if it applied equally to every single belief of every single person on the planet, but the argument is supposed to single out a particular set of beliefs that have special concerns.
    
    e.g. It’s okay to doubt this thing, but if your doubt turns to disbelief you’ll be punished so severely that it would have been better to die at the age of three.
    - http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
      
      Robert, you describe it as an “argument”. John made clear that it isn’t an argument. Rather, it is a principle.
      
      Let me return to a point I made a couple years ago. If I wanted to be like John I might invent what I call an Objective Test for Politics. Basically what I’d do is challenge anyone with political beliefs to try and view their beliefs from the objective perspective of a person who doesn’t share those beliefs.
      
      That’s fine, so far as it goes. But an objective test for Political Beliefs is really unnecessary and attempting to propagate one is nothing more than a substandard attempt at academic branding. (I.e. “Dr. Rauser is the foremost defender of the Objective test for Politics.”)
      
      Forget an objective test for this or an outsider test for that. It’s all a baloney attempt to detract from the blushingly simple fact that we always ought to strive for objectivity in our beliefs.
      
      John’s outsider test does have one valid use. Spread it on your lawn and watch how green it gets (the lawn that is).
      - R0c1
        
        Not an argument, agreed.
        
        … an objective test for Political Beliefs is really unnecessary and attempting to propagate one is nothing more than a substandard attempt at academic branding.
        
        It’s “necessary” in this respect: John is working for social change where the current social norms include beliefs like,
        
        “It’s perfectly okay to teach your kids that failure to believe a man rose from the dead will land you in a hell-fire torture chamber.”
        
        We have absolutely no empirical/testable evidence that this torture chamber exists, and belief that it does exist is, I think, seriously harmful. It’s harmful that my own mother cries for my soul if I’ll never be sent to hell. She could feel a lot better about her son if she was not taught this crap from a very young age.
        
        So while John’s Outsider Test could be reduced to “people ought to question their beliefs”, that’s not the best way to get someone like my mom to question her’s. She needs specific, concrete reasons why believing her son is doomed to hell is absurd. She needs to take the Outsider Test *for faith* … and we both know that there are tons of people like her that are afraid to seriously question the resurrection of Jesus or the general reliability of the Bible.
        
        substandard attempt at academic branding
        
        Okay, I’ll go for that. When I read John’s Outsider Test for the first time, I thought to myself: SERIOUSLY? Does this guy really think no one else has thought of this? Maybe John was the first to package the idea into a best selling book, but it’s not as original as he made it out to be.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        It seems like you’re pinning your hopes on John’s OTF as being more likely to cause people like your mom to rethink some of their beliefs than a general principle of epistemic fallibility and self-critique. This actually seems very doubtful to me.
        
        The problem is that the OTF is directly confrontational. Typically that’s the worst way to engage a person to change.
        
        When Jesus taught he used parables precisely in recognition of the fact that a truth stated indirectly is more effective than one stated bluntly. And when Socrates taught he asked questions, realizing that allowing people to come to answer their own questions was much more powerful than the teacher providing the answers.
        
        And so here. Giving people the requisite tools to self-introspect their beliefs is ultimately much more powerful than bluntly telling them “You need to think about your religious beliefs as an outsider.”
        
        So it seems like the last justification for the OTF is stripped away. But as I said, this doesn’t preclude the possibility that it could be a great turf builder.
        
        R0c1
        
        I would love to know what actually changed my mind from theism to whatever-I-am-right-now. I’ve tried to rebuild the memories into a narrative, but it’s hard to know how much I’m projecting back into the past.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        That’s a great comment. People are often way too confident in rebuilding the personal narratives of their lives.
        
        Walter
        
        I actually tried something like the OTF with my own mother about two years before she died. She never once in her lifetime attempted to engage skeptical arguments against her faith. When I asked her how she knew her faith was true, she stated that she “just knew.” I explained to her that Mormons and Muslims could give that very same answer, and they clearly had false beliefs, so perhaps that should cause her to rethink her fideism and critically examine her beliefs. She refused to read any books that I owned that were critical of Christianity (a couple were by Loftus). I don’t think she could for the reason that Robert has mentioned: promise of reward for faithfulness and fear of extreme punishment for failing to believe the bible as interpreted by her sectarian denomination.
      - ManhattanMC
        
        “….Basically what I’d do is challenge anyone with political beliefs to try
        and view their beliefs from the objective perspective of a person who
        doesn’t share those beliefs.”
        
        Again-IMHO-you demonstrate that you don’t really understand the OTF.
        It is not just to ‘view’ others political or religious beliefs with an attempt at objectivity….it is to apply to your own beliefs the same arguments and types of arguments you use to dismiss the beliefs of others. That is a force towards a level of objectivity that can’t be easily ignored and a level that you simply can’t assume you already have anymore than you can assume your out of date Norton anti-virus software is working without verifying it is.
        
        You really don’t see that difference?
        
        “John’s outsider test does have one valid use. Spread it on your lawn and watch how green it gets (the lawn that is).’
        
        Another cheap shot.
        Your arguments and your credibility would be better served to leave them out.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        “It is not just to ‘view’ others political or religious beliefs with an attempt at objectivity….it is to apply to your own beliefs the same arguments and types of arguments you use to dismiss the beliefs of others.”
        
        That’s what being objective MEANS, it means overcoming your innate confirmation bias which predisposes you to accept evidence supporting your beliefs and discount evidence that contradicts your beliefs WHATEVER those beliefs may be, whether they be political or social or cultural or “religious” or anything else.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        “That’s what being objective MEANS, it means overcoming your innate
        confirmation bias which predisposes you to accept evidence supporting
        your beliefs and discount evidence that contradicts your beliefs
        WHATEVER those beliefs may be, whether they be political or social or
        cultural or “religious” or anything else.”
        
        Yes-and that’s why I specifically said
        
        {“…… with an attempt at objectivity…..”.
        
        We-and that includes you-need all the help we can get.
        The OTF-IMO-offers such help.
        And I still contend that overcoming specifically religious conditioning is a special case with the difficulty proportional to the depth of the conditioning.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        “And I still contend that overcoming specifically religious conditioning is a special case with the difficulty proportional to the depth of the conditioning.”
        
        Since you don’t want to provide a definition of religion or religious belief, let me focus on a specific case. Say that Brady was raised by two parents who taught a rigorous reductionism about the world. We are brains and consciousness is an illusion. Ethics are non-rational emotive preferences. There is no over-arching purpose to life. All that can be known comes through science.
        
        Is it possible that the content of these beliefs and/or the way Brady holds them could be religious? Why or why not?
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Of course that could be a religious belief. It is almost a dead ringer for some hindu beliefs up to the ethics and purpose of life BS.
        Why do you waste my time and yours?
        Here you are again-trying to find a fringe loophole with artfully constructed nonsense.
        
        What part of ‘the conditioning and it’s depth is the problem’ did I not make clear?
        
        Your Brady would be a prime candidate for the OTF, IMO.
        
        Happy?
        
        Brady might not need the OTF but I have no doubt it might be very useful to him in examining the damage that ws done to him.
        And please, understand that I think that damage is not conditional on the truth of the claims his parents forced him to accept by whatever means.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        Might John Loftus’ beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality be religious? Why or why not?
        
        R0c1
        
        Religious is a fuzzy category. John’s beliefs probably have something in common with a religion or two.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        What beliefs does John hold?
        Why do they matter?
        This kinda looks like a pissing match on your part.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        If it is possible that John’s beliefs are religious in nature, and you’ve conceded as much, then he too should be subject to his OTF test. That is significant.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        I think you have me confused with someone else.
        I have conceded no such thing and would not since I have no idea what John’s beliefs are. I have never heard or read anything by him that would indicate he believes anything at all without proof.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        I described the case of Brady raised with a “rigorous reductionism”. You agreed that Brady’s views could be religious. Interestingly, Brady’s views are pretty much just like W.V. Quine’s. I suppose you’re familiar with Quine, one of the premiere atheistic philosophers of the last century. It follows that atheists could hold their beliefs in a religious way. John is an atheist, and I doubt you understand the psychology of his belief well enough to know whether he holds his beliefs religiously or not. But based on your concession he could.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        I agreed that the first part of your carefully constructed and unlikely fringe thought experiment is similar to some forms of hinduism.
        But this is still beside the point.
        Again-what part of ‘quasi-religious’ and ‘semblance of religion’ and ‘anything constructed to resemble the broad historical edifice of religion” isn’t clear to you? I used all those terms and phrases and still you harp on.
        
        You still don’t get it.
        
        No adult convert to any religion or quasi-religious ideology is going to have the same depth of conditioning as those conditioned purposefully as children. Perhaps the biases of those ‘converted’ under duress and threat of loss of life might approach that tenacity but they would never be of a truly single mind.
        Religious-and yes, nationalistic-conditioning capitalizes on the impressionability of young minds to implant bias. As the jesuits say “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”.
        Also, no casual social convert is going to have the same depth of conditioning as someone who has an emotional epiphany conversion experience.
        
        I think your reading of Quine is superficial and quite frankly, I think it’s wrong.
        
        {“For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits.” W. V. Quine Two Dogmas of Empiricism}
        
        Not that it matters for my contention.
        
        ” It follows that atheists could hold their beliefs in a religious way.”
        
        Sigh. Harp, harp, harp.
        I can’t believe it is this difficult for you to understand what I view as a very simple declaration.
        An atheist conditioned as a child in the same way by the same methods as a traditional ‘faithist’ conditioned as a child would be as much a dogmatist and would have just as much use for the OTF. However, atheism-unpolluted by ideologies-would pass the OTF easily since at it’s core atheism requires no belief without proof.
        
        ‘John is an atheist, and I doubt you understand the psychology of his
        belief well enough to know whether he holds his beliefs religiously or
        not.”
        
        If you have evidence he does so-let’s hear it. Otherwise this is more of you engaging in sophistry.
        And even if he does hold such views ‘religiously’ (which would be a matter of degree and not an exclusive proposition, no?) how would you distinguish between what he holds as conviction based on his best assessment of the available evidence and what he holds as a result of emotional attachment?
        Your proposition fails, IMO.
        
        “But based on your concession he could.”
        
        Wow, I’m really not getting through to you or you are just deliberately sand bagging.
        
        I’m cross posting this and your post that is a response to since you are talking about Mr. Loftus once again.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        I suggest you read Quine and Nelson Goodman’s 1947 essay “Steps toward a construtive nominalism”, (Journal of Symbolic Logic). It is a very helpful and succinct overview of Quine’s program.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        And I suggest you lay off the name dropping and concentrate on the subject at hand. You’re flailing.
        
        Your entire construction missed the point. For my purposes, how ‘Brady’s’ parents enforced this world view is far more important than the content of said world view. I’ve made this quite clear several times now and you ignore it.
        You have yet to acknowledge either the assertion or it’s truth value.
        You ignore all my questions and assertions.
        So what’s the point of continuing this discussion?
        
        You also seem quite obsessed with drawing an equivalence between religious conditioning and studied atheism.
        Ain’t gonna wash.
        
        Is all conditioning equal or is conditioning from childhood deeper?
        Is conditioning performed on a person in an emotional state as easily nullified that which is not?
        Are faith decisions based on fear of bodily harm as tenacious as decisions made to assure one’s place in a peer group?
        
        And why would the OTF be useless in any of those non-hypothetical situations?
        Why would the OTF not be a more useful tool for a layman than for a theologist/apologist with a divinity doctorate?
        
        Inquiring minds seek to understand the ‘otiose’.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        “And I suggest you lay off the name dropping and concentrate on the subject at hand.”
        
        This is the Wikipedia definition of name-dropping: “Name-dropping is the practice of mentioning important people or institutions within a conversation,[1] story,[2] song, online identity,[3] or other communication. The term often connotes an attempt to impress others….”
        
        I have no interest in “impressing” you. The sole point of mentioning Quine is that he is one of the leading atheists of the last century and his views are consistent with views you said would qualify as religious. Thus, atheists can be religious and should submit themselves to the OTF along with everyone else.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Okay-I’ll withdraw the charge of name dropping.
        But you were trying to impress me-don’t kid yourself. You selected your little hypothetical to introduce Quine unless I miss my guess.
        It would be waaaay to convenient otherwise, no?
        
        You are still missing the point or you imagine that if you keep hammering me on small side issues I’ll forget the thrust of the argument. I’m not sure which and at midnight I’m not sure I care which.
        
        For the third time-I think, I’m not going to go back and check-it is not the content of the conditioning that matters in my view.
        If the parents of your ‘Brady’ use the same techniques of inculcating and indoctrinating as religions have used for thousands of years they are just as despicable to me as the priest crafters.
        I don’t know how I can be more concise and I’m really starting to feel John’s pain.
        
        “…..point of mentioning Quine is that he is one of the leading atheists of
        the last century and his views are consistent with views you said would
        qualify as religious. Thus, atheists can be religious and should submit
        themselves to the OTF along with everyone else.”
        
        Sigh. Yes, I knew what you were driving at from the introduction of ‘Brady’. And I only accepted half of your list-remember?
        I don’t know why I bother.
        Do you imagine for a second that Quine came to his views through being conditioned to have a bias toward them?
        Do you imagine Quine thinks of his carefully constructed system as a religion rather than a philosophical system?
        Please.
        
        The point-and I’m so tired of saying this-is not the beliefs involved it’s the way they are implanted. that’s why i initially went to the trouble to mention ‘quasi-religious institutions’ and ‘the evolved techniques of religious indoctrination’.
        
        I meant precisely what I said when I said ‘I don’t give a damn about how you define religion’.
        It doesn’t matter.
        You can argue-not successfully-that religions (and yes-nationalists) don’t have such techniques but you can’t argue that institutions that use them don’t resemble religions in that respect.
        
        I don’t wish to discuss Quine with you.
        I don’t wish to rehash whether atheism is a religion or not with you.
        
        If you have nothing to say on the topic of my assertions we are finished.
        
        It’s been fun.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        “Do you imagine Quine thinks of his carefully constructed system as a religion rather than a philosophical system?”
        
        Quine passed away over a decade ago. Obviously he didn’t think he held “religious” views. And whether he did or not is irrelevant. The point is that the set of propositions Quine held could be held by a person religiously. Likewise, the set of propositions held by Loftus could be held by an individual (including Loftus himself) religiously. Any belief system can be taught in a way that quashes free intellectual thought and that is true even if the person in question opts to call him or herself a “free thinker”.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Pardon me for using the present tense, but his thinking is still available for inspection, no?
        
        Any set of memes can be said to be held ‘religiously’ if we want to engage in equivocation. One would however, have to discard the ‘devotional and ritual observances, and moral code’ requirements of most common definitions. I suggest we discard instead, the adjective ‘religious’ and just refer to strongly held convictions or beliefs. But that wouldn’t serve your purpose, would it.
        Holding views is another continuum. One can be lightly attached to views one holds or one can be passionately attached to views one holds with many degrees in between. The question is what makes the difference.
        But again-that isn’t germane to my point.
        
        You are still dancing around my point without engaging it while pushing your own claim that John is as much conditioned as religious believers commonly are.
        Again-if you have evidence of this let’s hear it.
        That something is ‘possible’ doesn’t prove it is the current state of affairs particularly if it’s improbable.And I don’t agree that late life conversions will ever produce anywhere near the same depth of conditioning as that which the deliberate mind fucking of children by priest crafters will produce, as I have stated.
        
        “Any belief system can be taught in a way that quashes free intellectual
        thought and that is true even if the person in question opts to call him
        or herself a “free thinker”.
        
        Hmmmm.
        I would not say ‘taught’ I would say ‘ingrained’ or ‘inculcated’.
        And would further stipulate that the fault is not in the belief system but in it’s communication.
        That said, you know that I’m not going to agree that atheism-or John’s atheism specifically-is a belief system.
        
        Again-I ask for evidence to the contrary and by that I don’t mean another of your carefully constructed experiments in logic.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        “One would however, have to discard the ‘devotional and ritual observances, and moral code’ requirements of most common definitions.”
        
        Atheists have a moral code. Often it is one rooted in humanist values. It may be utilitarian or relativistic but they do have a moral code rooted in their beliefs.
        
        As for devotional and ritual observances, this raises many questions including (1) whether devotional and ritual observances are essential to religious observance and (2) what range of behaviors and practices could count as instantiations of devotional and ritual observance. The application is wider than you think.
        
        Interestingly, many atheists treat scientists as a de facto prophetic and priestly class. The scientific method becomes a sacramental process for aligning one individually and corporately with “Truth” and a prophetic ongoing revelation of the way the world is. If one listens closely one can regularly hear soteriological and eschatological language in the work of secular scientists, Carl Sagan, E.O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins all being great examples.Wilson, for example, actually has said that scientific enquiry is a way of satisfying religious hunger.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        So….no evidence to the contrary just more philosophical arguments that atheists can so be religious?
        
        “Atheists have a moral code.”
        
        Sorry-that is utter nonsense.
        
        ” Often it is one rooted in humanist
        values. ”
        
        You weaken your assertion already. ‘Often’? So it’s not universal among atheists?
        What has value once one recognizes that there have been to date no valid claims for ‘god’ or ‘gods’?
        How is concern for humans and human concerns a moral code? It’s more like an area of interest.
        
        “It may be utilitarian or relativistic but they do have a moral
        code rooted in their beliefs.”
        
        Sigh. I really don’t want to have this argument again.
        I am at odds with many atheists on this but I hold that atheism is the lack of belief in ‘god’ or ‘gods’ and not a positive claim. And that lack of belief certainly does not contain self evident tenets in regards to morality.
        Was Ayn Rand a utilitarian? Is anyone who rejects the purported authority of imaginary deities a relativist?
        I think you attempt to conflate and confuse the issue.
        
        And what beliefs do atheists hold?
        I’ve asked this question of many theists who claim atheism is a belief system and have never received a satisfactory reply.
        
        “As for devotional and ritual observances, this raises many questions
        including (1) whether devotional and ritual observances are essential to
        religious observance …”
        
        I think so. Without them one has an opinion, not a religion.
        
        “and….(2) what range of behaviors and practices
        could count as instantiations of devotional and ritual observance. The
        application is wider than you think.”
        
        But not nearly wide enough to bind as diverse a group as atheists, IMO.
        
        “Interestingly, many atheists treat scientists as a de facto prophetic
        and priestly class.”
        
        You offer an opinion-unsubstantiated-to support your opinion?
        Do you have any evidence for this assertion other than your opinion?
        I’d like to see it.
        
        “The scientific method becomes a sacramental process
        for aligning one individually and corporately with “Truth” and a
        prophetic ongoing revelation of the way the world is.”
        
        Argument by metaphor. Cute.
        Sorry-claiming the scientific method a ‘sacrament’ is like calling
        the game a pep rally or calling a hammer a house. (Since we’re indulging in metaphors.)
        
        Your understanding of the scientific method seems a bit shallow. There is no dogma in science. No beliefs or strictures that can’t be challenged. Science is not a corporation and scientists using the scientific method disagree with other frequently.
        
        Scientists speculate about the future but only a few crack pots here and there pretend to prophesy and they are largely ignored.’
        Scientific theories make predictions based on extrapolation of data but calling such conditional predictions ‘prophecy’ would silly.
        
        “If one listens
        closely one can regularly hear soteriological and eschatological
        language in the work of secular scientists, Carl Sagan, E.O. Wilson,
        Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins all being great examples.”
        
        Hmmmmmm.
        
        {“Soteriology: the study of religious doctrines of salvation.”}
        
        Really? Which of those scientists even posits the survival of the human personality after death?
        If you had mentioned Kurzweil or Tippler you might have had a point. Another fringe point, but a point all the same.
        
        Eschatology? Equivocation, guy. Following the math and physics to the predicted end of the universe as it becomes the province of black holes isn’t the same as imagining the ‘rapture’.
        
        If you hold a sea shell to your ear you can hear the ocean and if you play Black Sabbath backwards you can hear the voice of Satan-or so I’ve been told.
        What does their use of language that vaguely reminds you of religious cant prove other than your possible confirmation bias?
        
        “Wilson,
        for example, actually has said that scientific enquiry is a way of
        satisfying religious hunger.”
        
        Wilson has done excellent work on many subjects but IMO seems to go off the rails when he pushes his group selection hypotheses.
        I don’t think ‘religious hunger’ is anything more than the attempt of the priest class to coopt the very real human awe of the natural world and an attempt to make the results of religious conditioning seem innate.
        No one is born looking for ‘god’.
        
        And if Wilson were right, what of it?
        Would that prove science is religion or that lesser appetites can become extinct in the face of greater?
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        I guess you didn’t understand what I was saying. I didn’t say that all atheists share the same moral code. Rather, I affirmed that all atheists have a moral code. (Compare: all new Mustangs are sold with four wheels. That doesn’t mean that all new Mustangs are sold with the same size and style of wheel.)
        
        “I hold that atheism is the lack of belief in ‘god’ or ‘gods’ and not a positive claim.”
        
        Sorry, that’s called “Agnosticism”. Atheism is defined as the belief that no God exists. Agnosticism is defined as lack of belief either that God exists or that God does not exist.
        
        You should check out my new book where I spend part of a chapter on this point.
        
        “And that lack of belief certainly does not contain self evident tenets in regards to morality.”
        
        I didn’t say it did.
        
        “And what beliefs do atheists hold?”
        
        Atheism is minimally the view that the ultimate explanatory cause of existence is not a mind.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        “I guess you didn’t understand what I was saying. I didn’t say that
        all atheists share the same moral code.”
        
        You said, and I quote:
        
        “Atheists have a moral code. ”
        
        Go back and re-read your own post.
        if you meant ‘all atheists have some kind of moral code’ you should have been much more concise.
        
        “Rather, I affirmed that all
        atheists have a moral code. (Compare: all new Mustangs are sold with
        four wheels. That doesn’t mean that all new Mustangs are sold with the
        same size and style of wheel.”
        
        Don’t lecture me when it is your lack of clarity that is wasting your time and mine.
        
        {“I hold that atheism is the lack of belief in ‘god’ or ‘gods’ and not a positive claim.”}
        
        “Sorry, that’s called “Agnosticism”. ”
        
        Nope-you are wrong and I’m amazed that someone with your credentials would make such an error.
        Agnosticism is the belief that knowledge of ‘god or ‘gods’ is impossible.
        
        {“ag·nos·ti·cism
        ? ?[ag-nos-tuh-siz-uhm]
        noun 1. the doctrine or belief of an agnostic. 2.an intellectual doctrine or attitude affirming the uncertainty of all claims to ultimate knowledge.”} World English dictionary
        
        And:
        
        {“agnostic:
        1. a person who holds that knowledge of a Supreme Being, ultimate cause, etc, is impossible
        2. a person who claims, with respect to any particular question, that the answer cannot be known with certainty”]
        Collins English Dictionary
        
        I don’t believe or think any of that.
        Show me evidence of any ‘god’ and I will evaluate and investigate it.
        So far I have seen none that is credible but my mind is open to the possibility. Proof of a ‘god’ or ‘gods’ should be a simple thing IMO if they actually exist.
        
        “Atheism is defined as the belief
        that no God exists.”
        
        That’s only one definition.
        
        {“atheist: 1. a person who does not believe in God or gods”} World English Dictionary
        
        ….is another, and this:
        
        {“Atheist: A person who lacks belief in a god
        or gods. People who use this definition categorize atheists as either
        negative (or implicit or weak) atheists or positive (or explicit or
        strong) atheists. Negative atheists, while they don’t believe in a god,
        do not positively assert that no gods exist. Positive atheists,
        however, do.}
        
        ……is still another.
        
        “Agnosticism is defined as lack of belief either that
        God exists or that God does not exist.”
        
        By whom? I’ve heard theists say that many times but dictionaries-all I have seen-disagree.
        
        “You should check out my new book where I spend part of a chapter on this point.”
        
        I think not. If you have actual arguments-and arguments that don’t rely on errors like the one just made-post them here.
        
        {“And that lack of belief certainly does not contain self evident tenets in regards to morality.”}
        
        “I didn’t say it did.”
        
        Yea-you kinda did.
        
        {“Atheists have a moral code. Often it is one rooted in humanist values.
        It may be utilitarian or relativistic but they do have a moral code
        rooted in their beliefs.”} RR
        
        How could a moral code be ‘rooted in’ beliefs if that code isn’t self evident in said beliefs?
        And note that you use ‘code’ singular and not ‘codes’ plural, which undermines your previous assertion.
        
        You attempt to graft diverse philosophies onto the body of atheism then pretend they are atheism itself.
        
        {“And what beliefs do atheists hold?”}
        
        “Atheism is minimally the view that the ultimate explanatory cause of existence is not a mind.”
        
        Hmmmm-
        
        Nah. That’s not the definition I and many others use.
        It’s a lack of belief and nothing more. You simply haven’t met your burden of proof. I’m waiting.
        
        And seriously-that’s your best shot?
        Explain to me how such an ‘ultimate creator’ mind-which surely must be more complex than its creation-came to exist without being created.
        
        I’ll wait.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        “If you meant ‘all atheists have some kind of personal moral code’ you should have been much more concise.”
        
        That statement is concise. The problem was ambiguity: it could plausibly be read to express two different propositions.
        
        “Don’t lecture me when it is your lack of clarity that is wasting your time and mine.”
        
        Well I guess I better draw this to a close then.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Concise and ambiguous.
        Got it.
        
        Yea-we’re not accomplishing anything here.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Why should John’s beliefs or their category be of any concern whatsoever?
        Either the OTF is useful as a tool or it is not.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        It’s not.
        
        But nonetheless, it is interesting that it follows from your comments that John should apply the OTF to himself now which is something he has steadfastly refused to do in the past.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Sorry-I don’t see where you’ve made any case for that.
        You don’t seem capable of understanding the OTF well enough to even summarize it.
        
        “…it is interesting that it follows from your comments that John should
        apply the OTF to himself now which is something he has steadfastly
        refused to do in the past.”
        
        WUT?
        
        What conditioned religious or quasi-religious belief system does John posses that he would apply it to?
        And how on earth does it follow from my comments’ that he should apply it to himself?
        
        Explain it to me-I suspect the explanation would be very entertaining.
    - http://profiles.google.com/bradhaggard Brad Haggard
      
      Just to throw in my two cents, I think that John thinks his test is so strong because he came out of a very fundamentalist and separtist Christian community. The Churches of Christ are notoriously dismissive of other’s beliefs, and I think that is the lens from which he views faith. The problem for John in that respect is that other Christians and religionists don’t follow the same (double) standards of evidence that he was used to. This is coming from someone in a sister church to CoC. That’s why the OTF sounds unnecessary to me.
      
      Plus, when I pressed him on that, at one point he said the only way you could say that your religion had “passed” the OTF is to first assume it is false and then see if you had the evidence to overturn that assumption. That’s called begging the question in my book, and not a rational way to approach inquiry. But, he comes by it honest because that’s how he was trained.
      - Walter
        
        That doesn’t sound like begging the question to me. You would only be provisionally assuming the role of an unbeliever for the sake of testing your reasons for belief. Seems like good advice for testing any particular worldview, including atheism.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Well said.
      - http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        Interesting. I’m sure that kind of past history plays into John’s reasoning in the same way that my past history plays into my reasoning.
        
        As for the principle that “you have to assume x is false and then establish its truth before you can believe it” I’d like John to be consistent and apply the principle to itself.
        
        R0c1
        
        It seems to me that I was not created with priors **. At some point – whether I was a soul, an embryo, or something else – I started to observe my environment and I started making judgements about it.
        
        Our minds believe by default; it takes extra cognitive effort to disbelieve. We can’t question everything at once — it’s far too great an effort — and so we have to use our intuitions about what goes to the front of the line. For me, there’s a certain fuzzy category of “religious” things that should start out with a very low prior. However, I don’t think my prior “against” religion is arbitrary… it had to come from *somewhere*
        
        ** That’s not entirely true, I was born with DNA, which is a TON of information, ya’know.
        
        http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/ John W. Loftus
        
        Randal, there is some really solid overwhelming evidence that when it comes to your religion you should presume it has the burden of proof, which is to assume it is false. It’s hypocritical to do otherwise since that’s how you REASONABLY approach all other religions that you reject.
        
        If your faith passed the OTF then you would be crowing about it. The fact that you intuitively recognize it doesn’t is the only reason you rail against it.
        
        There are a great many things you accept that you would change your mind about if someone presented sufficient evidence against it. Evidence has a way of breaking through to us all. Why doesn’t your faith have that kind of sufficient evidence for it?
        
        Let’s put it this way: if God created us with minds that need sufficient evidence to believe and did not provide the needed evidence to believe, then he took away with one hand what he demands on the other hand. It also means reasonable people who demand sufficient evidence to believe who were not born in a Christian privileged culture will be condemned to hell by that same God because they were born as outsiders.
        
        http://profiles.google.com/bradhaggard Brad Haggard
        
        John, what is sufficient evidence? I have found enough to believe, and so has Randal. If you’re going to call us delusional in order to assert your rationality, then you continue to run in circles.
        
        In fact, when I told you that 20th century revivals have validated Christianity to outsiders, that’s when you came up with that criteria. That standard, not simply being an outsider but positively declaring a belief to be false before investigation, begs the question.
        
        Let me ask you this: how much evidence do Jesus mythicists need to change their minds?
        
        http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/ John W. Loftus
        
        Scientologists, Haitian witchdoctors, Muslims, and Hindu’s would say the same thing as you do, that “I have found enough to believe, and so has Randal.” You need to seriously understand this point Brad. So, what method do you propose to solve the problem of religious diversity? Take this question seriously this time.
        
        The fact that Christianity is growing in Asia and the southern hemisphere does not mean it passes the OTF for that means that since Islam is also growing it does too. And so is Mormonism and Scientology. What these growing religions show is that people are adopting their religious faith because they are unreasonable with the evidence. How do you know that this describes you?
        
        Ahhh, Jesus mythicists. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Given the inherent impossibilities we face when accepting any miracle claim in the ancient superstitious past based upon the paltry historical evidence and contingencies of interpretation that view is more probably than your view, even if I do think Jesus existed.
        
        http://profiles.google.com/bradhaggard Brad Haggard
        
        Couple of things, John. First, Christian revivals don’t follow the same pattern of growth as the religions you cited. I encourage you to read “Global Awakening” by Shaw on how these revivals work.
        
        Second, your solution to the “problem” of religious diversity isn’t a solution. Declaring all religion even “likely” false does not follow from the presence of religious diversity. And religions are more than two or three propositions, making them a mixed bag. I’m sure there are some rather basic moral truths that you would even agree with across religious spectra.
        
        So the answer is thorough and diverse study, not flippant skepticism. It really irks me when skeptics try to attack someone’s beliefs as “crazy” (such as articullet does with Scientologists) without giving them a fair hearing on their doctrines.
        
        And, come on now, you know that mythicists are instructive in this, because their belief in a literary Jesus rather than an historical one is completely impervious to evidence and argument.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        Brad, according to John’s expert psychological diagnosis you’re clearly sublimating your doubts and reforming your skepticism about Christianity as skepticism about the OTF.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        John, do you have any idea how stupid you sound? Look how you play the armchair psychologist, asserting that I actually believe that Christianity is false, but I sublimate those beliefs and project the angst I feel about them onto your lame claims. Sadly, it would appear that psychologizing your opponents with pure speculation is, in your mind, some sort of argument.
        
        You would be great as a neo-con. They’re always talking about American exceptionalism. You, on the other hand, talk about atheistic exceptionalism. There is this so-called OTF which applies to everybody but you and your doxastic community. As the church lady used to say, “How con-VEEN-ient.”
        
        A week ago I asked you to respond to my critique of your wildly bad essay “Christianity is wildly improbable,” a critique which I wrote a year ago. You promised to do so. But you didn’t, and here you are saying the same pathetic schlock instead. Come on man, grow up and get serious! Here’s the link again:
        
        http://randalrauser.com/2011/08/the-end-of-christianity-a-skeptical-review-part-4/
        
        http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/ John W. Loftus
        
        Okay, Randal, your wish will be granted soon enough.
    - http://profiles.google.com/bradhaggard Brad Haggard
      
      @Nox_Eternis:disqus Assuming something a priori before investigation is not question begging?
      http://www.skepdic.com/begging.html
      
      1. If you look at a religion as an outsider, you will find that it’s false.
      2. You should look at religion as an outsider.
      3. Therefore, religion is false
      - Walter
        
        That was not what I meant. I said that you should provisionally assume the *role* of an unbeliever. Let’s flip it around from an atheist perspective. A cradle atheist could test their reasons for belief in naturalism by assuming the role of a philosophical theist/deist and examining what reasons they have to reject that position.
        
        http://profiles.google.com/bradhaggard Brad Haggard
        
        @Nox_Eternis:disqus I just think those positions are too vague. Different atheists have different plausibility structures, as do theists. I think that’s why John really pushed the envelope when I pressed him by stating that you had to assume a religion was false.
        
        Walter
        
        I can’t speak for John, but I consider the outsider test to be nothing more than playing the skeptic when it comes to your beliefs. Think of a scientist that has developed a new theory that she believes will revolutionize her particular field of study. Before she presents her theory to the academic world she needs to assume the role of the skeptic and try her best to falsify her theory. If she can it’s back to the drawing board. This is all the OTF means for me.
        
        http://profiles.google.com/bradhaggard Brad Haggard
        
        @Nox_Eternis:disqus And I don’t think there’s anything to object to in your formulation. I just take pains to point out to John that there are Christians who genuinely do this.
  - R0c1
    
    Yudkowsky’s stuff would be incredibly difficult to refute, in part because he doesn’t write like a philosopher with explicit numbered arguments (it’s particularly messy when he talks about morality), and in part because he has written so much.
    
    So it’s okay to ignore him for whatever reason — lack of time, lack of interest, being put off by many worlds or transhumanism, etc — I for one have ignored Plantinga and Feser up to this point even though I expect they have good things to say…
    
    But my hope is that someday a Randal Rauser type theist will take the plunge and say exactly what’s wrong with LessWrong style reductionism. I’d learn a lot from that.
    - Eric E.
      
      I started reading Less Wrong a while ago when I was looking for info on cognitive biases and happened across the site. There actually isn’t much to refute from Yudkowsky because he rarely writes about religion. His general approach to religion is that once you become sufficiently rational then religion isn’t even a question. Religion, for Yudkowsky, is a symptom of even deeper irrationality and once you take care of that, religion just kind of goes away.
      
      South Park Version:
      1) Become more rational.
      2) ?
      3) Goodbye religion (Profit!)
      (source: http://lesswrong.com/lw/1e/raising_the_sanity_waterline/ )
      
      I hope I don’t have to point out that this isn’t difficult to refute.
      - R0c1
        
        “Become more rational –> Goodbye religion” is the thesis, but there are specific arguments along the way that make the thesis work.
        
        I’ve never tried to list them explicitly. That would be a good exercise… let me see what I can cook up.
  - ManhattanMC
    
    “…John’s so-called “Outsider Test” is crap, not because it asks “people of
    faith” to test their beliefs but because it doesn’t explicitly ask
    everyone to question their beliefs all the time….”
    
    I would like to hear you address my contention that religious beliefs-especially those ingrained purposefully from childhood-aren’t a special case.
    
    I’d lay off the computer microphone analogy.
    Anti-virus software is a better comparison because it is closely analogous to introspection.
    - http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
      
      “I would like to hear you address my contention that religious beliefs-especially those ingrained purposefully from childhood-aren’t a special case.”
      
      You’ll have to define what a “religious belief” is before we can consider whether they count as special cases.
      
      Could beliefs of nationalism count as religious beliefs? What about secularist beliefs? Is the qualifier religious dependent on the content of the belief or how it is held or both/and or something else?
      - ManhattanMC
        
        I’m sorry-you’re engaging in sophism. You know perfectly well I’m not talking in absolutes.
        
        Of course the line between religion and nationalism is often blurred.
        
        Do you know of any secularist beliefs that are inculcated in the
        Same manner that is common in religions?
        I don’t.
        
        ” Is the qualifier religious dependent on the content of the belief or how it is held or both/and or something else? ”
        
        Sigh.
        This is what John is talking about. You look for a loophole in the fringes.
        
        Childhood conditioning-whether it be to enforce belief in the fairy tales of religions or anything constructed to resemble the broad historical edifice of religion-is not the same as beliefs and conclusions arrived at post-childhood.
        And it is to overcome the residual bias of such techniques that make the OTF useful.
        
        Do you admit you have such residual bias toward your christian beliefs?
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        “Do you admit you have such residual bias toward your christian beliefs?”
        
        Everybody manifests the confirmation bias. You do, and I do. So we all need to strive to overcome our inherent tendencies to bias the beliefs we currently hold, whatever those beliefs may be.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Thanks for that. It was frank and honest.
        
        Now, how does the OTF not provide pressure toward eliminating confirmation bias/residual conditioning that merely striving and claiming to be impartial can’t?
        
        Where is the check?
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        I wrote an entire book arguing that all people need to work to overcome all their biases. I take issue with a suggestion that (1) some people are especially prone to confirmation bias, coupled with (2) I’m not in that group.
        
        That’s dangerous thinking. And I see it in John’s writing when he describes everybody who has a particular mindset to be deluded but he’s been delivered from that delusion and now thinks clearly about these issues. Sounds like a religious conversion to me.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Wow. You wrote an entire book. I’m impressed.
        Not, however, as impressed as I’d be if you actually addressed my contentions.
        
        “I take issue with a suggestion that (1) some people are especially prone
        to confirmation bias…”
        
        Then you don’t understand the reality of the human condition.
        Some of us have the misfortune to be inculcated by the full force of the clergy and some had lazy handlers.
        Some of us might have a natural-or learned-predilection toward rebellion-others the opposite.
        It is, IMO, frankly insane to suggest all are equally capable of introspection.
        
        “….coupled with (2) I’m not in that group.”
        
        I can readily see how that offends you.
        I can also plainly see why John puts you there.
        
        “That’s dangerous thinking.”
        
        I might cede the second-not the first. You do exhibit confirmation bias publicly, IMO.
        
        “And I see it in John’s writing when he
        describes everybody who has a particular mindset to be deluded….”
        
        Isn’t a ‘mindset’ a delusion by definition?
        
        “…. but he’s
        been delivered from that delusion and now thinks clearly about these
        issues.”
        
        One can be delivered from a particular delusion or set of delusions. It is not at all uncommon.
        What John objects to-and I hope he will forgive me if my paraphrase is inaccurate-is the re-tooled theist saw of demanding the skeptic ‘apply his skepticism to his own doubt’.
        That has become-in this discussion-’apply the outsider test for faith to atheism’.
        And that, friend, is nonsense unless you want to open up the whole can of worms discussion of whether atheism is a positive claim, is a religion, and blah blah blah-you have to be as bored with that as everyone else is.
        
        And it’s kind of nasty for you to personalize the argument and claim John gives evidence that he personally is beyond reproach., if you don’t mind my saying so.
        
        ” Sounds like a religious conversion to me.”
        
        Sounds like another specious analogy to me.
        
        I am cross posting this BTW-since John was discussed I think it’s only fair.
AdamHazzard

Does the very familiarity of the religion we’ve grown up with bias us in its favor? Do we cut familiar religious beliefs more epistemic slack than we grant to the religious beliefs we reject? Those questions are implied by the OTF, and I think they’re important questions. I see no reason why an evangelical faith like Christianity should step back from them. Any evangelical religion has already implicitly answered the question with a resounding “Yes, our beliefs are objectively superior to others, and you should adopt them.”

Exposure to an “outsider” point of view can indeed erode religious belief, which is why some belief systems attempt to wall off exposure to views from outside the community. For instance, see this article from Slate.
- http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
  
  “Does the very familiarity of the religion we’ve grown up with bias us in its favor?”
  
  That question is too narrow, and that’s precisely the problem with the OTF. Let’s restate your question more broadly:
  
  “Does the very familiarity of the beliefs we’ve grown up with bias us in their favor?”
  
  Note that this restatement encompasses everything from culture (e.g. it is natural to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, but definitely not locusts and rice) to politics (e.g. all good people vote Republican and certainly not Democrat) to metaphysics and ethics (e.g. reasonable people are atheists and deluded people are theists).
  
  If you take that all encompassing view of the confirmation bias, then John’s OTF is, as I have repeatedly said, otiose. But even worse, it is prejudicial, for it suggests that “religion” (however you define that exactly) presents a special problem that doesn’t exist in other areas of our life. That’s clearly false. We’re equal opportunity when it comes to the exercise of our confirmation bias.
  - ManhattanMC
    
    Sorry-that’s a nonsensical reply.
    Religion is a special case since practitioners of priest craft have perfected the insidious art of connecting religious beliefs to emotion through conditioning.
    
    Bacon and eggs-not so much.
    - http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
      
      If you’re going to say “Religion is a special case” you’ll need to provide a definition of “religion”.
      - ManhattanMC
        
        Are you denying that religions condition children?
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        No, I never suggested any such thing. What conditions children is the worldview they’re raised with. Take a child raised in the Bible belt of Kentucky and plop them down in rural Vietnam. They will be incredulous to a whole gamut of beliefs and practices that the Vietnamese around them hold. “They don’t believe in God? They eat insects with rice for breakfast? They don’t believe in representational democracy? They don’t like Justin Bieber?” People are conditioned thoroughly through the culture / doxastic communities in which they are raised.
        
        The problem is that you seem intent on suggeting there is one subset of beliefs that some people hold which are especially pernicious to this conditioning. And I’m simply asking you to explain what the necessary and sufficient conditions are for one having one of these especially pernicious beliefs.
        
        That obliges you to provide a definition of “religious belief”.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        “No,
        I never suggested any such thing. ”
        
        Good. Do you deny that religions engage in activities that result in such conditioning?
        
        “What conditions children is the
        worldview they’re raised with. ”
        
        Wrong. Right in the general sense but not the specific.
        The repetition of dogma to very young children and the implications of removal of love and support are in a different class than world view in general.
        
        “Take a child raised in the Bible belt of
        Kentucky and plop them down in rural Vietnam. They will be incredulous
        to a whole gamut of beliefs and practices that the Vietnamese around
        them hold. “They don’t believe in God? They eat insects with rice for
        breakfast? They don’t believe in representational democracy? They don’t
        like Justin Bieber?” People are conditioned thoroughly through the
        culture / doxastic communities in which they are raised.”
        
        You belabor the obvious. My contention is that a subset of cultural conditioning-religions indoctrination-is of a ore severe nature and the techniques used have an evolutionary history that makes them insidious.
        Address it please.
        
        “The problem is that you seem intent on suggesting there is one subset
        of beliefs that some people hold which are especially pernicious to this
        conditioning.”
        
        No-I’m suggesting that many belief/meme systems-which I term religious but can obviously be more diffused-use pernicious techniques that are more potent when used against children and use them for that purpose whether individuals using them are aware of that purpose or not.
        Are you misunderstanding or sand bagging?
        
        “And I’m simply asking you to explain what the necessary
        and sufficient conditions are for one having one of these especially
        pernicious beliefs.”
        
        I think I’ve made it clear that which particular beliefs are inculcated is beside the point.
        
        “That obliges you to provide a definition of “religious belief”.
        
        Nope.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        What makes “religious cultural conditioning” of a “more severe nature”? Doesn’t it depend on the beliefs and the way they’re taught?
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        “What makes “religious cultural conditioning” of a “more severe nature”?
        
        Seriously? You don’t understand that religious people purposefully condition children in a manner that the imitation and absorption of ones cultural milieu do not?
        
        “Doesn’t it depend on the beliefs and the way they’re taught?”
        
        The beliefs themselves? fuck no!
        Teaching a child to believe in the FSM through repetition of dogma, implied threats of the pain of loss of parental love and horrific threats of torture in an imaginary afterlife would just as insidious as what most christian faiths do habitually.
        
        I really have to question your seriousness here.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        You ask “Seriously?”
        
        I have to reply in kind. Seriously? The power of nationalism is at least as strong. After all, the idea of one’s country right or wrong regularly leads people to commit atrocities in war.
        
        Crude
        
        Nationalism, allegiance to an ideaology or culture… there’s quite a list.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        “Nationalism, allegiance to an ideaology or culture… there’s quite a list.”
        
        Sigh.
        I think you still don’t understand the distinction I’m drawing between conditioning that is casual-picked up without much stress or duress in daily life-and conditioning that is inflicted by those with a concrete religious or nationalistic agenda.
        
        And where the fuck did you get ‘allegiance to an ideology or culture?
        That is the end result of what I’m talking about.
        So it’s a short list and I already alluded to both types found on it.
        
        Do you know of any nationalistic conditioning of children that does not include some religion or semblance of religion?
        
        I can’t think of one but I’m not a cultural anthropologist.
        
        Crude
        
        I think you still don’t understand the distinction I’m drawing between conditioning that is casual-picked up without much stress or duress in daily life-and conditioning that is inflicted by those with a concrete religious or nationalistic agenda.
        
        And I think you’re not picking up that your distinction is pretty useless. It doesn’t matter if conditioning is very stern or more casual and stress-free – that doesn’t determine how great the bias generated is
        
        Do you know of any nationalistic conditioning of children that does not include some religion or semblance of religion?
        I can’t think of one but I’m not a cultural anthropologist.
        
        Er, China? Stalinist Russia? Cuba? North Korea? The list is considerable, unless you want to include atheist ideologies as part of ‘religious’. In which case, “Maybe what’s going on over at Camp Quest”.
        
        And where the fuck did you get ‘allegiance to an ideology or culture?
        
        You’ve never met anyone with a crazy-ass adherence to an ideology? Google for “atheism+” for a starter course.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Wow-you’re a real brain, guy.
        
        “And I think you’re not picking up that your distinction is pretty
        useless. It doesn’t matter if conditioning is very stern or more casual
        and stress-free – that doesn’t determine how great the bias generated is”
        
        How choice.
        I’m not talking about ‘stern’. I’m talking about threats of violence (both present time and in an imaginary after-life), actual violence, use of time tested conditioning techniques and the implied threat of cessation of parental/handler/peer group support and love. The stuff religions have been using virtually forever.
        
        And you seriously think that all conditioning is the same regardless of the level of emotion generated when implanting it?
        I’m speechless. You obviously know little of human psychology.
        
        “Er, China? Stalinist Russia? Cuba? North Korea? The list is considerable,
        unless you want to include atheist ideologies as part of ‘religious’.”
        
        You might want to read the entire conversation before you jump in with both feet.
        I specifically included nationalism and noted that the lines between religion and nationalism are often blurred in such situations.
        And yes, I view communism as an irrational religion complete with infallible leaders, culturally enforced behavioral norms, sacred books, utopian goals and confession.
        I do not view it as an ‘atheist’ ideology since atheism is incidental and is not an ideology in any meaningful sense.
        
        ” In which case, “Maybe what’s going on over at Camp Quest”.’
        
        Sorry-false equivalence.
        You don’t understand the insidious nature of religious conditioning if you don’t recognize that.
        Compare Camp quest with Jesus Camp and you will, hopefully overcome your confirmation bias sufficiently to start to get the idea.
        
        {“And where the fuck did you get ‘allegiance to an ideology or culture?”}
        
        “You’ve never met anyone with a crazy-ass adherence to an ideology?”
        
        Way to completely miss the point, genius.
        Mr. Rauser was trying to pad his list and confused results with causes.
        
        “Google for “atheism+” for a starter course.”
        
        Yup, goober, atheism is an ‘ideology’ and it’s ‘crazy-assed’.
        Not.
        
        Crude
        
        I’m talking about threats of violence (both present time and in an imaginary after-life), actual violence, use of time tested conditioning techniques and the implied threat of cessation of parental/handler/peer group support and love.
        
        Congratulations! You just described standards that go way, way beyond religion both in principle and practice. Keep on undercutting your own case.
        
        And you seriously think that all conditioning is the same regardless of the level of emotion generated when implanting it?
        
        Read more carefully, Manhattan – comprehension is apparently not your strong suit. My point was that conditioning is NOT all the same – but that different, even more passive kinds of conditioning can still result in powerful bias.
        
        I specifically included nationalism and noted that the lines between religion and nationalism are often blurred in such situations.
        
        Include it all you like – it still suffices to knock your rhetorical teeth out when the reality is brought up. Doubly so when you realize that in those cases, it wasn’t mere nationalism in play – it was adherence to an ideology.
        
        I do not view it as an ‘atheist’ ideology since atheism is incidental and is not an ideology in any meaningful sense.
        
        The League of Militant Godless and the fact of state atheism apparently is a big mystery to you, then. Atheism was central the the ideology in iteration after iteration.
        
        You don’t understand the insidious nature of religious conditioning
        
        All indications are you don’t either – all you’ve got are crazy-ass generalizations and the fact that you get really emotionally worked up when you talk about it.
        
        *patpat* There’s a pat on the head, Manhattan. If you need some graham crackers to calm you down, I’m sure they can be provided.
        
        Way to completely miss the point, genius.
        
        Man, you are just really, really slow.
        
        Yup, goober, atheism is an ‘ideology’ and it’s ‘crazy-assed’.
        
        Durrrr, me are Manhattan. Me no think atheism+ is real! It no be true! DERP.
        
        Sorry, guy – I’m not the one who came up with atheism+, the Cult of Gnu, etc. That was the anti-theist brigade. They remain as a pretty splendid example of people with an allegiance to an ideology.
        
        Now, remember, I laughed at you and exposed how you’re pretty damn helpless on this question. Be sure to flip the hell out and call me lots of names – just as you’re conditioned to.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        “Congratulations! You just described standards that go way, way beyond
        religion both in principle and practice.”MMC
        
        Sorry-that’s BS and if you don’t know it you need to do some research. You seriously don’t know of any religions that practice corporal punishment? You seriously want to argue that there is difference between religions and cults other than degree of usage of such techniques? Please.
        None so blind.
        
        “Keep on undercutting your own
        case.” Crudeboy
        
        Hardly. And you ignore the most significant half of the argument-the impressionable nature of children when they still trust their parents and all adults not to lie to them.
        
        {“And you seriously think that all conditioning is the same regardless of the level of emotion generated when implanting it?”} MMC
        
        “Read more carefully, Manhattan – comprehension is apparently not your
        strong suit. My point was that conditioning is NOT all the same – but
        that different, even more passive kinds of conditioning can still result
        in powerful bias.” CrudeBoy
        
        You’re trying weasel and finesse your BS, dude.
        You said:
        
        {“I think you’re not picking up that your distinction is pretty useless.
        It doesn’t matter if conditioning is very stern or more casual and
        stress-free – that doesn’t determine how great the bias generated is”} Crudeboy
        
        Clearly your point was that emotion doesn’t correlate directly to the tenacity of residual conditioning. And I mentioned the ‘And we’re not talking about ‘how great the bias’ is, fool. We’re talking about how difficult it is to eradicate the bias or even see the bias in oneself.
        You are having trouble getting on the playing field here, son.
        
        {“I specifically included nationalism and noted that
        the lines between religion and nationalism are often blurred in such
        situations.”} MMC
        
        “Include it all you like – it still suffices to knock your rhetorical
        teeth out when the reality is brought up.” CrudeBoy
        
        Only in your demented imagination, son.
        So far all you’ve offered is a bare assertion that emotion doesn’t affect the depth of conditioning, a few red herrings (or perhaps genuine misunderstandings of the topic at hand-which would be even more pathetic) and some attempts at argument by colorfully emotive language.
        
        “Doubly so when you realize
        that in those cases, it wasn’t mere nationalism in play – it was
        adherence to an ideology.” CrudeBoy
        
        Like nationalism isn’t an ideology?
        You strain at gnats and swallow camels.
        
        {“Ideology:
        the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.”}
        
        Does that help you, son?
        And as I’ve repeatedly stated-it is not the content of the conditioning but rather the means by which it is inculcated.
        
        Oopsie, eh goober?
        
        {“I do not view it as an ‘atheist’ ideology since atheism is incidental and is not an ideology in any meaningful sense.”} MMC
        
        “The League of Militant Godless and the fact of state atheism
        apparently is a big mystery to you, then. Atheism was central the the [sic]
        ideology in iteration after iteration.” CrudeBoy
        
        Oh please. Economic theory was central-atheism was an after thought, even to Marx. Stalin actually had an alliance with the russian orthodox church until they started harboring dissidents.
        And there’s this:
        
        {“One of the early Soviet regime’s most ambitious attempts at social engineering, the League of the Militant Godless (Soyuz voinstvuyushchikh bezbozhnikov) was also one of its most dismal failures.
        Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/league-of-the-militant-godless#ixzz25qNZ90Ev….”}
        
        A ‘central dismal failure’ then? LOL
        
        Your understanding of history is below the level of some bag ladies I’ve had the pleasure of conversing with. That’s what unexamined confirmation bias can do to ya, son.
        Heal thyself.
        
        “You don’t understand the insidious nature of religious conditioning.”} MMC
        
        “All indications are you don’t either – all you’ve got are crazy-ass
        generalizations…” Crudeboy
        
        Do I really have to list examples of everything I mentioned with links? Really? I grew up in a religious community where they were all common place, fool.
        
        “…and the fact that you get really emotionally worked up
        when you talk about it.” CrudeBoy
        
        Apparently you read emotion in online posts as poorly as you read history and philosophy.
        
        “*patpat* There’s a pat on the head, Manhattan. If you need some
        graham crackers to calm you down, I’m sure they can be provided. ” CrudeBoy revealing his true argument
        
        Condescension will get you nowhere, big boy. I’ll bet you condescend to all the boys who ream your….uhm…’arguments’ LOL
        
        {“Way to completely miss the point, genius.”}
        MMC
        
        “Man, you are just really, really slow.” CrudeBoy
        
        talk is cheap, son. so far you’re batting zero.
        
        {“Yup, goober, atheism is an ‘ideology’ and it’s ‘crazy-assed’.”}
        
        “Durrrr, me are Manhattan. Me no think atheism+ is real! It no be true! DERP.”
        
        Oh for crap’s sake, you moron. What does the ‘+’ mean?
        It means ‘plus social justice’-an ideology.
        Atheism is not an ideology even though it can be tainted by any number of ideologies.
        Are you really this stupid? Derpa derp derp derp indeed, fool.
        ‘Me CrudeBoy-me no understand this maths thing called plus sign.’
        
        hahahahahahaha-by your own petard, fool.
        
        “Sorry, guy – I’m not the one who came up with atheism+” CrudeBoy (showing off his stellar command of logic and reading comprehension once again.)
        
        Yup, goober, any institution created by nominal atheists is synonymous with atheism entire.
        Do you ever read your nonsense before you hit post?
        
        “…..the Cult of
        Gnu, etc.”
        
        WTF is the ‘cult of Gnu’? Something you invented?
        
        Scraping the bottom of your metaphorical barrel on your second example? LOL too friggin’ funny.
        
        “That was the anti-theist brigade.” CrudeBoy
        
        Atheism and anti-theism are synonymous now?
        Hhahahahaha-
        You really don’t do nuance, do ya, genius?
        
        “They remain as a pretty
        splendid example of people with an allegiance to an ideology.” CrudeBoy
        
        Yea-anti-theism and social justice are ideologies. Atheism-not so much. Check the definition I posted above and then give me a list of the “body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc.,” of the Atheist
        “individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.”
        
        “Now, remember, I laughed at you and exposed how you’re pretty damn
        helpless on this question.” Crudeboy (playing pigeon chess even though he claims to believe in evolution.)
        
        Hahahahaha-
        if you can even formulate what ‘this question’ is (And I don’t think you can without re-reading vigorously) you should perhaps meditate on exactly how far afield you actually blundered, fool.
        
        “Be sure to flip the hell out and call me lots
        of names – just as you’re conditioned to. ” (Crudeboy in a silly attempt at a pre- emptive strike)
        
        Yup, goober, you hit the nail on the head-such insight! LOL
        I’ve been ‘conditioned’ to examine arguments and try to assess their truth value. Unfortunately you have offered none.
        And why should I call you names? You’ve made yourself look silly enough without any help from me.
        
        Thanks for the LULZ
        
        I leave you with this quote from one of my favorite philosophers who was also a neurosurgeon:
        {“anytime a decision is made with emotion/feeling it becomes the rule for attitude/action from that time on”}
        
        I don’t ask that you accept it-I ask that you observe and experiment with it to test its truth value.
        
        ‘Bye-try not to have an aneursym,’nnnnkay?
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        “Do you know of any nationalistic conditioning of children that does not include some religion or semblance of religion?”
        
        Given that you’ve conceded that a religion may be secular and atheistic in nature, it may well be that all nationalistic conditioning is religious in nature. Much will depend on how we opt to define religion and which specific examples we think count as religion.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Nope.
        
        A => B does not necessarily mean B => A
        
        By ‘semblance of religion’ I simply mean the adoption and adaptation of the conditioning techniques perfected by religions over millennia.
        
        I conceded that some secular meme groups may be quasi-religious in nature-nationalism, utopian philosophies like communism-and atheism may be a part of them. I conceded that the lines between nationalism and religion can and often are blurred. Those points have nothing to do with whether religions can be secular or not.
        
        I don’t give a damn about the definition of religion. The continuum of the depth of the abuses of conditioning by whatever groups and the spectrum of responses to such conditioning clearly correlate.
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        “I don’t give a damn about the definition of religion.”
        
        If you’re a fan of the OTF, where “Faith” includes or is even equivalent to “religion”, then you probably should be concerned how you’re defining “religion” because that will define the scope of application for the test.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        Utter nonsense.
        
        I admitted a broad application of the OTF is desirable and possible in regards to any emotionally tainted belief system in my earliest posts on the subject and….still you harp.
        
        And no-faith and religion are not precisely the same thing. Even though the OTF specifically mentions religious belief I hold that the OTF can and should be used to examine any belief or belief system one may defend to counteract confirmation bias.
        
        ‘Atheism’ that is faith based is superficial and should be challenged just like faith based religious beliefs should be challenged.
        I personally don’t regard atheism as a positive claim (and let’s not have that argument again, okay?) nor a belief system and hold that the OTF is therefore not a proper subject for studied atheism.
        
        Belief is a spectrum just like depth of conditioning is a spectrum. The OTF is applicable in varying degrees across much of it, losing usefulness only as beliefs become shallower in one direction on that spectrum and conditioning becomes weaker on that spectrum.
        
        ManhattanMC
        
        “…The power of nationalism is at least as strong….”
        
        At some times in some nations the power of nationalistic conditioning is strong or even stronger. What has that to do with my assertion?
        Either you don’t understand what I meant by “the imitation and absorption of ones cultural milieu” or you are trying to change the subject. That’s why I question your seriousness.
        
        In any case, I mentioned nationalism previously if obliquely in this statement.
        
        {“I’m suggesting that many belief/meme systems-which I term religious but
        can obviously be more diffused-use pernicious techniques that are more
        potent when used against children and use them for that purpose whether
        individuals using them are aware of that purpose or not.”}
        
        “…After all, the idea of one’s country right or wrong regularly leads people to commit atrocities in war.”
        
        Yes-and so does religious conditioning. I agree they belong in the same category. And as I said previously, the distinctions between them are often blurred. Nazism was a distorted christianity. Ancient judaism was tribal warfare bonding.
        We are seeing the emergence of a frightening christian nationalism in the US right now.
        
        Both, religious and nationalistic conditioning (which BTW, I was calling child abuse ten years before Richard Dawkins did so) are not the same as the casual conditioning caused by imitating and absorbing the culture one is born into since both are conducted by committed ideologues with specific goals.
  - AdamHazzard
    
    Your objection isn’t an objection. You prefer to ask, “Does the very familiarity of the beliefs we’ve grown up with bias us in their favor?” A good and pertinent general question. Let’s apply it to the specific case of religious belief and ask, “Does the very familiarity of the religion we’ve grown up with bias us in its favor?”
    
    There is also the second question: “Do we cut familiar religious beliefs more epistemic slack than we grant to the religious beliefs we reject?” Reminding us that the question is about the standards of veracity we bring to our beliefs and whether we apply them consistently.
    
    Again, I’m bewildered why an evangelical religion in particular would find these questions troubling.
    - http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
      
      Adam, I don’t find troubling the importance of introspecting your beliefs to overcome confirmation bias. Indeed, I wrote an entire book advocating the importance of such an endeavor. What I find problematic is the claim that John’s OTF is anything other than one concrete exercise in confirmation bias analysis applied to the subset of the beliefs some people hold.
      - Crude
        
        I’ve heard it said about the OTF that (as the saying goes) what’s worthwhile about it isn’t new, and what’s new about it isn’t worthwhile.
      - AdamHazzard
        
        In other words, Randall, you like what the OTF encourages us to do — but you resent the implication that religious beliefs in particular cry out for such inspection, or that they are particularly vulnerable to it. Correct?
        
        http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
        
        I argue that everybody should seek to overcome their own innate confirmation biases through critical thinking. But as far as the OTF goes, Crude said it well: “what’s worthwhile about it isn’t new, and what’s new about it isn’t worthwhile.”
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/5AU7DJ4GGBKTNOMWD3HBZVBGZ4 Randall
    
    Randall, I had previously considered you a collaborator. I now must apologize, and I understand if you don’t think my apology is worth bothering with, but after seeing your dealings with Loftus over at his blog the past couple of days I see what you have done is lead him down the primrose path.
    I think you are demolishing him with a new level of expertise.
    Ourstanding performance.
    I can hardly wait to ready your new books.
    - http://www.randalrauser.com/ Randal Rauser
      
      Sounds good to me!